Take Me, Save Me
by IHateRaisins
Summary: Casey had always dreamed of someone taking her, stealing her away from her uncle. She gets her wish but what if romantic feelings complicate plans for the Horde and gets in the way of Dennis's belief of The Beast? Will he go against Patricia and the others, especially when his certain proclivities take hold? AU, in which Casey willingly wants to be taken. Casey/Dennis.
1. Chapter 1

_Take Me, Save Me_

Casey sat in her usual spot, near the back of the class, hoping yet again to go unnoticed and unbothered.

The teacher was up front, near the black board, murmuring about the latest topic they were learning about in Biology class. She could hear the faint whispers behind her from a group of girls that did not like her; Ever since she could remember, the girls had made it their purpose to make Casey's life a living hell. Not that she truly cared.

There was a time there, when Casey was younger, that she wished she could fit in. But then she decided to embrace it; She was just not like all the others, and she would never be like them. She didn't care too much about fashion or cute guys in the higher grades. Honestly, there wasn't too much she did care about these days, aside from finding out different ways to avoid heading home and delaying it for as long as humanly possible.

Ever since her father had died, it had always been that way. Either she'd stay in the library late after school until it closed, or she'd find some nifty way to deliberately get herself a detention. Maybe even take a trip to the mall until late, just sitting there, people-watching.

Grabbing onto her sleeve with her fingers, she yanked it up over her wrists until just her fingernails were peeking through at the very end. Then she felt it. She dived forward in shock as one of the girls from behind her drove a hard finger right into her back, the legs of her chair screeching loudly along with the sound. Strands of her dark hair fell into her face as she grit her teeth, aware that now everyone had turned in their seats to peer back at her.

She could hear the girls as they burst out laughing behind her, her Biology teacher staring straight at her.

"Freak."

"Such a loser."

"Is there something you wish to say, Casey?" The teacher asked, arching his eyebrows at her.

Casey's mouth went dry as she focused on nothing else but staring back at her teacher, aware students eye's were on her, curious and waiting for what she was going to say. Some probably expected her to swear or yell again. It wasn't like she hadn't done that before as a way to deliberately land herself a detention.

"Um, no," she murmured, the girl's from behind her snickering again.

To her relief, the teacher returned to his lecture soon after and Casey sighed a breathe of relief as all the students turned back around again, listening. So much for going unnoticed, unseen and unheard. But she knew what was going to come the instance class was over and recess began.

As the bell finally signaled and the teacher dismissed them, Casey rose slowly to her feet, tucking her chair in while gathering her books. She hesitated near the door, undecided to whether to head out of the room away from the teacher's supervision. The girl's liked to corner her up against the lockers whenever they could. Something like a pack of wolves picking on an outsider, a stray, it always felt like. She held her books tightly to her chest as she braced herself, turning into the corridor.

Recess was always hectic. Students were rushing to their lockers, the corridor always packed and loud with voices. She dodged out of a boy's way so she wouldn't slam into him with her shoulder, keeping her dark eyes planted ahead as she swiftly strode towards where her locker was. She glanced behind her shoulder nervously as she unlocked it, stuffing her books inside. Then as she grabbed her bag and locked it up again, she walked down towards the double front doors and took a right to the girl's bathroom.

The girls bathroom felt like a safehaven to her, a place to retreat when the world got too loud.

Pushing the door open with the tips of her knuckles, she paused, clearing her throat to make sure the bathroom was empty. She heard no voices or sounds at the moment, so she assumed she was safe. Shoving her way in, she tore the strap of her backpack off her shoulders, going into the first cubicle and locking it up securely. Dumping her bag on the floor, she put down the toilet seat and sat, unzipping her bag. She reached into her bag and quickly pulled out the special little case she had, unzipping it as well.

She took out the razor blade and sucked in her breathe as she yanked up the multiple long cotton sleeves on the jumpers she was wearing, listening again. When she knew it was completely safe, she turned her wrist inward, her fingers shaking as she tightly held onto the razor.

It always helped, the pain. She dragged the blade downwards from her palm to the left of her wrist, inhaling in deeply. Her eyes smarted and bit with pain as she held back the tears, gritting her teeth. Within seconds, her skin was a bloody wet, stinging mess.

 _"It runs in our family, you know?"_ She heard his voice inside her head, sickening, gentle. _"He had a... condition. But don't worry, I'll look after you now. Family always looks after itself, you see?"_

Casey clenched her eyes shut tight as she finally lifted the blade off her skin. She could feel the sting, the humming. It centered and ground her, made her feel real, made her feel in control for once.

And then she heard voices. Giggling. Her heart leaped in her chest as her eyes popped open, warm tears trickling down her cheeks.

Alarmed, the blade slipped from her fingers as the door banged open. Footsteps came into the bathroom. A group of girls.

The blade hit the floor at her sneakers as Casey stiffened against the toilet lid, hoping to keep as calm and still as possible. A hunter aimed and ready to shoot his prey.

She stared down at the floor, pretending to be an inanimate object, the blade at the tip of her sneakers. She wouldn't dare move, not until the girl's had gone at the very least. Her wrist was throbbing from where she'd cut at it. Two red drops were near the blade. While she was watching, another drop fell from her slit wrist, but she remained still as humanly possible until she heard the sound of the girls pushing back outside the restroom while laughing again.

The instance she heard silence, Casey ripped a piece of toilet paper off the roll, holding it against her wrist.

Eventually she found the courage to stand and reach down, picking up her blade carefully. She didn't bother wiping up the spots of blood on the toilet floor. Let someone see it and wonder who hurt themselves, Casey decided with malicious satisfaction as she unlocked the cubicle, finally moving towards the sink. Let someone assume someone was near to dying and that they were in grave pain, because that's how she felt anyway.

As if she was constantly dying and in pain yet she couldn't show it, couldn't even dare say it out loud to save herself.

...

He was not surprised when he was handed over the Light. It was always him who had to do these nasty, ugly things. It was only he who had the heart for it.

But he knew it would be worth it in the end. It would finally be worth it.

 _For He was coming. Soon._

 _Soon..._

 _To rid the world of the filthy Impure, the vermin._

The Impure, vermin, sacred food. They seemed to be everywhere these days, everywhere he looked.

All these potentials. In the zoo, in the parks, in every neighborhood. They had all been enlightened now, they had all become wise to the truth. And Dennis liked to feel like he was on a mission, he was doing His work.

He wasn't really sure what he was doing, but he found himself strolling aimlessly towards a school. He paused by the gates, careless laughter and voices spilling out around him from in the yard.

He was trying to be good, especially knowing Patricia would be mad, yet he couldn't help scoping out the girls. Girls, so many of them, dressed in skirts, in shorts. He'd always liked watching them- no matter the age. He liked watching them dance, the way their skin rippled and moved. He couldn't help it.

Slowly wandering closer to the wire fence, he angled his glasses, peering through them.

A girl was sitting by herself, her head low, buried in some sort of book. The closer he got out of mere curiosity- or so he tried to tell himself, so Patricia wouldn't grow suspicious- he saw she was drawing in a sketchbook on the grass. She seemed content, absorbed in coloring in with her pencil, dressed in a black hooded jacket and jeans. Her backpack was dumped right beside her, unzipped.

He shouldn't be doing it, but he looked anyway, stopping directly across from the girl, staring at the back of her head. She had a pretty shaped skull, strands of long brown hair covering the half of her face.

His gaze landed on her hand as she drew and colored, his eyes focusing on the disgusting stain on her sleeve. Bizarrely enough, it seemed as if the girl was wearing multiple layers of shirts and jackets. Odd. It wasn't even that cold out.

The spot soiling her sleeve bugged him more than it probably ought to have. His hands began shaking as he frowned in disgust, arching his neck closer to the wire fence to get a better look at the dirty mark. Dirty. So, so dirty and disgusting.

Didn't she know how unclean and filthy she was? All that bacteria...

He leaned in, his forehead scraping against the cold wire in the fence as he muttered throatily, "You know you got something on your sleeve?" It came out wrong, the sound of his voice. It sounded like a nervous, disgusted belch.

He watched as the girl started at the sound of his voice, her slender fingers loosening their grip from around the pencil. She whipped her head back to glance around at him through the fence, her dark hair falling around her face. She was young, maybe sixteen or seventeen. Soft, light eyes. Round face, small features. Dennis wasn't quite sure the age, couldn't really notice the difference anymore.

Dennis could almost hear Patricia tsking at him over his words, yet he just couldn't resist. He couldn't help it. "You realize how filthy your sleeve is, huh? It's all ruined?"

Irritation rose inside of him as the girl simply stared at him, eyes wide, calm. If the fence hadn't been there in the way, Dennis would knelt beside her, telling her to remove that damn filthy sleeve-stained thing she was wearing at once. Only he couldn't reach her, and he did not like the fact that he couldn't. He felt utterly powerless as he stared at her through the space in the wire fence, like a protective cage around her.

Finally seeming to snap out of it, the girl turned her chin, glancing down at the mark on her sleeve. He grit his teeth, growing even more disturbed as he observed the girl dragging up her sleeve to reveal a dark red line along her wrist, covered and caked in what appeared to be dried blood.

It appeared to be some sort of cut, and Dennis had to refrain from commenting something else when, in such a cavalier way, the girl brought up her thumb to her mouth. He saw her tongue peek through her teeth as she licked at her thumb twice, wetting it. Then she was using her saliva to frantically rub at the blood, wiping it away.

It was no good, though. The stain was still there on the sleeve, regardless of what she was doing.

...

Casey hadn't expected some random man to turn up, only to speak to her through the fence that enclosed the school yard, cutting it off from the public streets. Once confident the blood was gone from the tender cut along her wrist, she turned her head, glancing back at the strange man again.

He was still standing there, peering in through a gap in the fence at her, his lips curved downward at the corners grimly, his piercing blue eyes glistening down at her with frustration.

He looked as though he'd eaten something sour like a lemon, she thought, amusing herself. He had a look of sheer disgust on his face, of distaste. It wasn't everyday she had a random stranger speaking to her through the fence.

The instance she had heard the man speak, in his curt voice with a slight Bostonian accent, she'd immediately sensed a strange aura about him. Something off-putting, something odd. That feeling was amplified by how he was being, anally remarking that her jacket sleeve was filthy. Like she hadn't known that already.

Surely the man had better things to do with his day than bothering her and scolding her for the bloodstain on her sleeve?

What she believed was even more off-putting, was how the man dressed and appeared. He was dressed head-to-toe in grey; A tight grey button-up, long-sleeved shirt and matching grey suit trousers. He almost reminded her of an austere military man, his hair closely cropped short, while he wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

In the distance she heard the bell ring for end of recess and for once, Casey found herself relieved.

Forcing a smile at the unnerving man, she stood, hastily collecting her schoolbag. As she turned and began walking back to the building, following the other students in, what she did not notice was the man still standing at the fence, staring after her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry for taking so long to write more. Hope this is okay regardless.**

* * *

She'd been putting it off, like always. Only she failed in obtaining herself a detention or a good enough reason to stay back late. Casey had no choice but to start walking home, no matter how long the journey was by foot to the house where she lived with her Uncle John. The longer it took, the better in her eyes.

Shrugging her bag over her left shoulder, she walked at a slow pace, her shoes and bottom of her jeans scuffling against the pavement as she passed through the wired school gates. It had already reached 5.30 in the afternoon and most of the students had gone home, aside from her and some of the school staff while she lingered about near the building.

Playing with one of the thick sleeve on her jacket that covered over her wrist with her fingers nervously, she glanced both ways before beginning to cross the road, the breeze sending long strands of her dark hair blowing around her. It was quiet at this time of the night. Peaceful, even.

Occassionally a car would drive past, disrupting the silence and startling her. But mainly it was quiet.

The closer she got to the house where she lived with her Uncle, the more tense her shoulders became. An unnerving feeling crept over all of her skin, making the little hair follicles on her arms and the nape of her neck stand up on edge, while her stomach muscles clenched, a sick anxious feeling building in her gut; Her usual feelings the closer she became to reach the home she shared with her Uncle.

It was always that way; She'd stiffen and tense like a rabbit being alerted to the sound of a bloodhound on the scent by its barking and its rustling through the grass. If she could, she would have avoided heading home altogether- though 'home' was not the word she would describe nor call where she lived as.

Casey had ran away more times than she could count on one hand, only for it to prove futile. The last time she attempted to run away, just four or five months ago, the police had found her on their nightly patrol wandering the streets. To them a school girl her age wandering alone in the middle of the night was a cause for concern. It had only resulted in the officers returning her straight back to her Uncle. If she didn't get a detention or find some way to prolong having to go home after school, she had no choice but to face the misery of being in the house with her Uncle.

The memory of last time she had failed to run away crept back on her...

 _Blue and red lights from the police car alerted her Uncle John to her arrival home. Casey glanced nervously out of the window from in the backseat of the patrol car, watching the blinds flicker open then closed as her Uncle peered out of them to see what all of the commotion was. Then his bulky silutte appeared as he opened the front door of the house. He stood out on the front steps while waving her and the police officers up._

 _Even then, Casey had been so sure she was about to vomit. Something sour had risen in her throat as she had turned to glance at the two policemen as they had exited the vehicle. One opened the car door for her, stepping back to let her climb out. She'd remembered peering up at the officer with wide pleading eyes, her heart thundering away in her chest._

 _Please don't make me have to go back up there, she had begged, wishing the man could have somehow had the ability to read her mind. Please don't make me go up there._

 _Only it had been too dark at the time. The officer had failed to read her facial expression, her tense body language. He'd beckoned her out of the car gently, and Casey knew it had been too late then. Grabbing her school bag by the strap, she had reluctantly shoved her feet out of the car, then stood, wincing as the officer slammed the door loudly behind breaths had become labored and uneven as she started stepping up towards where her Uncle stood, still in shadow on the steps. He'd had both hands on his waist; A sign that forewarned her that something unpleasant was bound to happen later once they were alone and the cops had left without a glimmer of suspicion._

No one would believe her anyway. Her Uncle John had always told her that, often enough it now had become a constant chant inside the back of her mind, a permanent belief, something ingrained deep into her. Who would believe her word over his?

Not even the school counselors or any law enforcers in a position of authority would believe her if they knew what really happened behind closed doors. Sometimes Casey felt as if she were truly invisible, as if she were always screaming at the top of her lungs on the inside, only for her pleas to constantly fall onto deaf ears.

Sliding her thumb beneath the layers of her sleeve, she bit down on her bottom lip with her teeth as it came into contact with the cut she had done to herself earlier in the bathroom at school. She rubbed the tip of her thumb back and forth over the tender fresh cut absently, remembering how disappointed her Uncle had been in her, at how unimpressed he was by her antics yet again of running away.

 _"You really do need to stop this childish nonsense, Casey," he'd said as he used the tips of his stubby fingers to shove her backwards into the chair._

 _She fell back into it, her school bag dropping carelessly on the ground between her sneakers as she kept her light eyes low to her fingers, her body tense as a bow-string._

 _Showing your submission was always best, Casey had learned from an early age, ever since her Uncle had began to do this to her, even under the pretense of 'games'. She had swallowed against a bitter taste in her mouth as her Uncle had sighed loudly, the stench of beer wafting from his breath._

 _"Your a grown-up now. It's time to play grown-up games." John had placed his hand beneath her chin, forcefully lifting her face so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes. "What would your father think if he knew of this? Of how you keep running away like this? You think he'd be happy?"_

 _It was his tactic of manipulation, she understood. He always brought her father into the conversation, using him as a bargaining tool to gain her obedience._

 _"I don't think he'd be very happy that the police had to drop you off home tonight. Do you?"_

 _Uncle John's face had changed in that way it always did. It gave her warning that something monstrous was coming, something beastly. She didn't fight or do anything more to anger him. She used to when she was younger, but she hadn't for a very long, long time._

Casey had long since learned that fighting was no use and that her Uncle's physical strength overpowered hers each and every time. It had only resulted in her getting even more bruised or hurt physically than she already was during her Uncle's 'grown-up games', as he often liked to refer to it as. It did not stop her fighting on the inside however.

Often, during those times with her Uncle, she had allowed her mind to wander off. Casey would pretend she were outside of herself sometimes, when her Uncle did the things that he did. She had learnt it at an early age; A way to distance herself from her physical body. Sometimes she'd drift off, imagining she were somewhere else, a glorious land with endless water and sand. Somewhere far, far away where her Uncle couldn't touch her spiritually. But afterwards, she would always come down from the cloud, her body showing the marks and pains of what he'd put her through.

The sharp stinging sensation on her cut from earlier in the day brought her out of her thoughts and she dipped her head to look at it, swallowing. Her thumb felt wet and as she lifted her arm slightly to look closer at her cut, she saw her furious rubbing had reopened the wound, making it seep with fresh blood again. Just like that, her mind was flung to that odd man during recess. How he had remarked on the dirtiness of her jacket sleeve through the wired fence, how disgusted he seemed.

A buzzing noise and music broke out into the silence as she walked. Her heart jolted. It was her phone.

Swinging her bag around, Casey hastily unzipped her bag, plunging her hand in, trying to locate it. Once she found it, she checked Caller I.D. Her heart seized and jolted in her chest even more.

Her Uncle was calling her now. She knew better than to not answer his calls.

She thumbed the answer button, inhaling in deeply once. Then she held the phone up to her ear. "H-hello?"

"Casey, where are you?" he demanded on the other line.

Her eyes flew frantically around her surroundings. She hesitated before telling him what street she was in.

"I'm coming to get you in the car," he told her with no room for discussion in his tone. "Wait right there until I get there." He hung up before she could even beg him not to come get her.

Defeated, Casey switched off her phone and moved towards the sidewalk, sinking down into the gutter while she waited. That awful feeling overtook her again; those feelings she always had due to anything to do with her Uncle John. Clutching her phone tightly in one hand, she rested her elbow against her knees, curling them into her chest as she waited nervously, her dark hair falling across her face like a curtain.

She wasn't sure how long she waited there for, didn't even bother checking the time on her phone. But every second that ticked by, it only made the feelings within her grow worse. She licked and moistened her lips as she eyed her surroundings, leaves scattering in the breeze on the pavement. A few cars drove past, their headlights blinding her vision momentarily each time, but they were fortunately not her Uncle John in his car. He hadn't arrived yet.

Dropping her eyes to the tips of her sneakers, she shuffled her feet against the concrete noisily while she waited. The waiting, it was unbearable. The choking dread, the suffocating fear. She began to trace a pattern with her shoes on the concrete as a way to distract herself, blinking heavily. Then out of the top of her eye, she thought she saw it. A shape, a tall shape like a person standing across the road.

She glanced up through her eyelashes, her breath hitching in her throat. Only it must have been a trick of her imagination, a trick of the lamplight's dimply lighting her surroundings. Because next second, there was no shape there. Just a branch from a tree in someone's yard swinging in the breeze soundlessly.

Bright headlights from a car cut through her vision and Casey turned curiously. She recognized the car the instance it turned around the corner, cruising down the street. Her Uncle had arrived.

He must have seen her from where she sat, waiting in the gutter, because he signaled to pull over at the sidewalk. The car halted a mere ten inches from her sneakers. The dread rising, ballooning out her heart painfully, she forced herself to stand as the door opened on her Uncle's side. Instinctively she stepped back as her Uncle strode across the front of the car, blocking the headlights momentarily to reach her. He left the car running as he forcefully tore the strap of her bag off her shoulder, gesturing wordlessly for Casey to get inside the car.

Dropping her chin and swallowing against a lump that had formed in the back of her throat, Casey did, meekly and silently reaching out to open the door to the passenger's side while her Uncle went to shove her bag in the backseat. She had only just glanced down to buckle her seat belt in securely when she heard the odd noise.

The light noise as her Uncle carelessly dumped her bag in the backseat. Then another came after it; an odd muffled noise, followed by a strange thump. The car jostled slightly as if someone rather large and stout like her Uncle John had been bashed against it. Next instance, the back door was slammed shut briskly.

The car was vibrating slightly from the running engine as Casey curiously turned around in her seat. A shadow moved across the rear of the car through the window. Immediately Casey knew it wasn't her Uncle. The shadow belonged to someone taller, someone slimmer.

 _Something clearly wasn't right._

Her senses heightened due to caution, she brought her eyes to the side mirror, glancing out suspiciously. The road and the streets were lit just enough that she thought she saw someone's leg on the ground at the back of her Uncle's car. Like someone was lying on the road, someone's legs sprawled out from an attack. She recognized that shoe at once, attached to that leg just at the same time someone sat in the front, driver's seat of the car beside her, reaching around to click their seat belt on securely.

Her heart felt as though it were frozen in her chest. Her breathing automatically stopped.

Someone else was inside the car. Someone else that was not her Uncle.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of something yellow as the car continued to vibrate.

No sudden movements, she told herself while she tried to remain as still and quiet in the seat as possible; a deer frozen in the headlights. No sudden movements.

Turning her head the slightest fraction while strands of her hair flew around her face, Casey saw what that shade of yellow was. Her mouth dropped open as her eyebrows arched. Someone was wiping down the steering wheel with a yellow cloth resembling a handkerchief. She noticed how careful they were, how thorough to clean and wipe every surface of the steering wheel that they could reach.

 _As if wiping away her Uncle's sweat or germs from him gripping at the steering wheel..._

Those fingers and hands definitely did not belong to her Uncle. Those hands and fingers were sinewy, longer, as if they could fit over someone's throat without difficulty, a horrifying, sudden thought to her. Those clothes most definitely were not her Uncle's clothes.

The person was wearing a bland, light grey color, head to toe, from the trousers, to the long-sleeved dress-shirt. Why did this person somehow seem familiar to her, as if she had looked at them once before?

As though finally done with frantically wiping down every surface reachable, the yellow cloth was carefully folded four times. Then both thumbs were used to smooth it of any wrinkles, before it was shoved into the left trouser pocket.

She realized she was shaking all over, her body shuddering with light tremours as the car was at last thrown into drive. She was thrown back into the headrest at the unexpectedness of the car suddenly becoming no longer stationary, moving again.

This man, he was driving the car now. Her Uncle's car. With her still sitting in it. Her Uncle... who he had clearly beaten and left either dead or unconscious sprawled out on the road.

Casey still felt as though she had lost all sense of feeling, as though she couldn't remember such a normal process as breathing as her eyes finally took in all of the person that was now sitting in the driver's seat of her Uncle's car, making her movements slow.

She felt her heart race spike up as it occurred to her who this man was. His hair was short, cut close to the scalp. He was wearing glasses, glasses that shined and reflected harshly in the headlights of oncoming traffic heading past them. She could only just see his piercing blue eyes as he heaved out a loud sigh while pressing down lightly on the breaks, slowing the car speed down.

 _It was the man who had talked to her earlier through the fence at school! The one who had seemed so weirdly offended over the fact that she had blood staining the sleeve of her jacket after she'd cut herself!_

 _But why would he do this? Why do this to her?_

His jaw muscles twitched as the car came to a full stop, as though he were gritting his teeth. It was if he was suddenly frustrated by something. Annoyed, even. His fingers clenched tightly over the steering wheel, then loosened, his knuckles straining under the tight grip. Casey tore her eyes away from him for one second to realize the source of the man's frustration. They had arrived at a red light, which meant evidently the car had to come to a stop.

 _The car had come to a complete stop!_

Realizing and seeing her way out, Casey kept her eyes forward, focused on the cars lined up in front of them at the red light. Careful not to make any sudden obvious movements, she lifted the hand that was closest to the door handle. Her entire body shook as she breathed deeply and shakily through her mouth, her palm skimming the cool handle to the right of her.

But then it was too late. The light flickered green to go, and it was too late. The back of her head was flung back against the head rest again as he slammed a foot back down on the gas, sending the car shooting forward and mobile again.

"Still dirty." His voice suddenly broke the tense silence around them in the car.

Casey let her eyes fall on the side of the man's face again warily as she stiffened. She was unsure whether he was speaking to her or not, his Bostonian rough voice filled with gruff disgust. But then the man sent a fleeting look in her direction to show that he was in fact directing the words at her, his lips pinched tight, the corners pulled downward. Again it were as if he were sucking on something sour, something unpalatable.

"Your sleeve," he abruptly elaborated with an inpatient jerk of his chin. "Your sleeves still filthy. It's got blood all over it. It's disgusting."

Casey's eyes flitted down to the sleeve herself, noticing the dried stain where she'd cut herself earlier. The blood had soaked through the fabric, leaving a splotched red stain.

"Take it off," he suddenly demanded like a dog barking an order.

Her eyes flew up at his face again, stunned. _Take it off? Why? But why would it bother him so much?_

Clearly she had took too long to obey. "Take it off, I said," the man repeated, lifting his voice. He wasn't exactly yelling at her but his tone wasn't exactly friendly either. She caught an odd sense of desperation in his tone, in the way he was breathing even, as he shook his head. Even though the front of his shirt, she noticed the way his chest rose and fell in panicked, stressed exhalations. "You can't be filthy when we present you. He wants you clean."

He wants her clean? She caught onto the keyword as she slowly yanked the zipper down on her jacket. He? And we. When 'we' present you. Casey's mind raced. Whoever this man was, he obviously wasn't doing this alone. There were others involved.

Obviously this wasn't a case of a normal car jacking if the guy had no qualms about Casey still being in it. And presenting her? Presenting her to who exactly?

She let her eyes fall on the man again while she struggled out of her jacket with the seat belt still on. Her impression of him earlier today, with how he seemed so anal about stains and cleanliness, she realized she were right on the assumption. He appeared to be full-on having a panic attack over the stain. She watched, puzzled, as the man loosened one hand over the steering wheel, only to bring it to the top of his closely-shaved scalp. His slender fingers shook as he ran his palm over his forehead, his breathing shallow.

Managing to fling her arms out of the jacket sleeves, she let it fall at her feet on the floor of the car. Then she used her sneakers to kick and tuck the cloth beneath the bottom of the car seat, her eyes still glued to the man in control of her Uncle's car.

Slowly, throughout the light rumbling sounds of the engine, she could hear the man's breathing go slower and slower. More relaxed, less panicked and more at ease. Brushing his hand away from his scalp, he corrected his glasses before placing it back on the steering wheel, flexing his fingers around the leather again tightly.

 _But presenting her? Presenting her to who?_

 ** _Thank you all for your alerts and reviews, I really appreciate them and am flattered. Would love to know if you are still interested in a Casey/Dennis story? :D_**


	3. Chapter 3

The longer the man drove in the car, the more Casey's uneasinessiness began to settle.

That unpleasant anxious knot she usually felt, deep in her gut at the mere thought of heading home to where she lived with her Uncle... it lessened as each moment passed by between the pair of them silently. It was... bizarre; Shouldn't she be freaking out about the fact that this guy had somehow managed to jack her Uncle's car, and now, he was taking her to God knows where to do only God knows what to her. Yet, there she was, relaxing slightly in the leather seat, her limbs becoming as limp as noodles with a strange contentment at the idea of never having to endure her Uncle ever again.

Then again, Casey reasoned that whatever this guy had in store for her, it was probably nothing compared to what had always been waiting for her at home with her Uncle.

Every now and then, she'd turn her head slightly, eyeing the man that sat inches from her in the driver's seat as he controlled and steered her Uncle's car. There's was something about him that seemed so stif, so austere. Even from the side and with what little she could see of his facial features from the dim headlights of cars that reflected past them on the road they were driving on, she saw that his eyebrows were sort of set in a rigid, menacing way, the corner of his lip pulled down and set into a permanent sort of unfriendly frown. He was definitely the guy she had noticed that morning at school, hanging around by the fence, looking in. The guy that had dared to comment on the barely there (or so she thought) blood stain on her sleeve.

Was that why he had been watching her that morning at school and had seemed so fixated on her? Had he been scoping her out, debating on whether she was the right victim to snatch away or something?

 _Clearly he had been, if here they were..._

Although they were in the safe and warm confines of the car, Casey started to feel a little chill overcome her. She reached down, covering one hand over the other. Now she wished he hadn't demanded she'd take off her jacket. Although she had a long sleeved sweater on beneath it, it was only one layer- she didn't feel covered enough. She stroked her thumb repetitively around her wrist, that sore cut from the morning making itself known that it was still fresh. Two rubs over it with her thumb, it stung and began to weep.

She clenched her eyes shut automatically over the brief sting, yet like always, the pain was a mixture of pleasure and annoyance, reminding her she was alive, that she was still surviving on. It grounded and centered her back down into the moment, into the present, where it was so confounding and strange. She reopened her eyes slowly, blinking forward outside the windsheild trying to make sense of her surroundings.

Whereever this guy was taking her, it wasn't an area she recognized. She couldn't even tell what street they were in anymore.

From the moment this happened, Casey found her eyes flitting over to the man again as she swallowed dryly.

His hands were still clenched over the steering wheel, long sinewy fingers wrapped around it and holding it tight. He was just driving her somewhere... not even bothering to speak at all. He hadn't given her an explanation or anything. Then again, was it best that she didn't know what was truly in store for her?

He must have felt her eyes staring at him, because suddenly he shifted his head to look at her. The shiny disks of his glasses reflected in the glare of a cars headlights from in front them. Blue. His eyes were blue, Casey thought. Probably the deepest shade of blue she'd ever seen on a person before.

And they were emotionless, too. Dead eyes. Nothing in them.

Why was that a comfort to her- the fact he had dead eyes? Maybe she'd lived so long, seeing the angry eyes, the hungry wolf eyes of her Uncle as he pinned her down like a lion to a gazelle, that... now she'd come to appreciate a pair of eyes with nothing in them?

She could just see the shift, the change in his expression as they held each other's eyes for a passing moment. His jaw tightened, the tendons twitching as that sour sucking-on-a-lemon look came over him again. Then, maybe as though finding her unapologetic gaze disarming given the circumstances, he abruptly turned his head back onto the road, like it was too much, almost too much to have his victim stare willingly into his eyes.

She thought she saw his head shake a little as he closed his eyes shut for the briefest moment, as if he was scolding himself for something he'd just done. One hand loosened off the steering wheel, and then he scraped his palm over the top of his bald scalp, as if agitated all over again and annoyed. Casey wasn't wearing the stained sleeved jacket anymore so she had no idea what his problem was.

"Not long now," he finally spoke, breaking the silence shared between them. His voice was barely above a whisper, his tone brusque and thick with his accent. "Not long until we get there."

Casey wanted to ask where 'there' was, yet found she could not remember how to speak. As it turned out, she hadn't needed to, as he continued a second later like he was reading her mind.

"It does not matter where we take you or how long you'll be with us for," he continued, "All that matters is that you do as your told until we present you."

 _Us. We_. Those words rang in her head, confusing her. He made it sound as though he were not alone, as though he had accomplices. Had someone hired him to take her? He obviously was not working alone by what he was telling her. But there it was again, his talk about presenting her. _Presenting her to who exactly?_ His words were so evasive, with not giving much of anything away.

"I've chosen you, and _I_ alone," he continued in his deep Bostonian voice, surprising her. "You should really be thanking me for the privilege. The others aren't so lucky." _Others_? As in _other_ girls?

Her heart stuttered at the comment. _Privilege? What privilege? Did he think taking her had been a privilege to her? Unless... he somehow knew about her life and her Uncle? Unless he could... tell?_

 _But no, surely he couldn't know. She never told anyone about it, not ever. Her Uncle always made sure she didn't._

Silence fell on them again, where the man just drove and no longer talked again. This time, it began to bug her. Nothing made sense. Nothing.

Clearing her throat gently she began, "What-" But her voice sounded too husky, too strangled, so she had to clear it roughly before trying again, "What- what's your name?" There was a tinge of desperation in her voice, but she couldn't help it. No answer came, even as she stared and waiting. "M-my names C-Casey."

"Dennis." The instance it flung out of his mouth, softly-spoken with a coating of regret, like he hadn't wanted to reveal it in the first place, Casey felt her heart pick up in pace with a swelling amount of hope.

If she could just get him to talk more, to say something that actually started to make sense...

"Y-you said _us_ , before? Us? _We_ , like... like there's others doing this as well?"

Apparently talking wasn't something this 'Dennis' appreciated. She caught it in the way he went rigid, in the way he sighed loudly.

"Keep quiet now," he said gruffly, hastily, avoiding her question. There was a clear note of warning in his tone.

But Casey decided she didn't care. What worse could be done to her already?

"S-someone else is working for you, aren't they?" she prompted impatiently, ignoring the fact that she was probably getting on his nerves. "It's why you say 'we' and... and 'us', isn't it?" Her voice was desperate. Filled with desperation to understand. "W-why are you even doing this to-"

He snapped, although Casey wasn't entirely sure she didn't already know it was about to happen. She could tell she had been pushing the man beyond breaking point. She could just tell. And she was right.

Just like with her Uncle, she was powerless, it had happened so dramatically.

She'd since learned that fighting only caused her to suffer in the long term.

Subservience and submissiveness was the only thing that served her well, particularly with older men who she was no match for in strength physically.

He'd reached into his pocket, pulling two small things out. She realized what one of those things was as he held and attached it over his face; a stark-white hospital mask that covered his nose and mouth. Then next, she noticed a small canister of something.

It was all a blur of movement. One hand tightened over the steering wheel, as the other gripped the small canister. Then this 'Dennis' had lifted his arm and pointed the nozzle of that canister in her direction in the passenger's seat and it was too late. Two rapid, relentless squirts was all it took.

She knew she'd breathed it in as soon as it entered the air between them. It went into her lungs, invisible particles, making her throat suddenly too tight, her eyes heavy.

Casey was gasping heavily, heaving, the rear of her head falling back dozily against the seat of the leather behind her. Her eyes remained, heavy, squinted, on the 'Dennis' man. Through blurry eyes, she caught his head turning in her direction as he looked back at her, half of his face obscured by the mask, only his eyes through the discs of his glasses visible.

Casey wondered if she looked exactly like what a near to stunned animal looks like; Helpless, heaving, lying there, eyes going in-and-out of focus as the predator stares back at them, waiting for the precise moment to strike. She thought she felt her breathing slow, her heart reducing in rate as her blurred eyes remained on the man, who peered back at her, his face impossible to read.

All she could see were those eyes of his; those wide blue, unwavering eyes as they stared back at her distantly through the frames of the glasses.

Like a video running on slow motion, she saw him rip that mask off, his mouth and nose coming into view. The last thing she thought she saw and felt, as she slipped slowly off into unconsciousness, was his hand reaching out towards her and the odd feeling of rough warm knuckles tenderly scraping down the side of her cheekbone.

...

He just couldn't help it, he couldn't resist, stupid as it was.

It was her skin. Her flushed skin, her dozy light brown-iris eyes and the enlarged black pupils- a known side effect of the chloroform- as they wavered in and out of focus at him. Her skin just looked _so smooth_ , _so tempting_. He knew he wasn't supposed to do it, yet... too late.

The instance he pulled back from his knuckles grazing the warm side of her face, Dennis felt guilt overcome him. It had been just far too tempting. He _was_ trying to be good. _Truly_ , he was.

 _Tut, tut, tut._ _Her_ voice plagued his mind, as it always did whenever he forgot himself. _Dennis, look what you've just done. I thought you had this little thing under control?_

Scolding. Reprimanding him.

 _You're not well. You know you're not to touch her, mm-mm. Hmm?_

"Thank you for reminding me, Patricia," he spoke out loud in the empty car, aside from the fairly young girl that was passed out in passenger's seat beside him. A bitterness burned in his gut, laced with shame as he allowed his eyes to briefly meet his reflection in the rear view mirror determinedly. "It won't happen again this time." He was uncertain whether he was simply trying to convince himself of that; The imprint of her warm, smooth skin, her cheek... it made his knuckles tingle where he'd let himself touch her. "She was sent to us for a reason."

Sorry for taking such a long time to undate. Ill be more frequent now I have free tome available to me. Hope youre still interested? Thanks for reading and let me know your thought :)


	4. Chapter 4

Dennis prided himself on being thorough. This was something he and Patricia and some of the others had planned for months, although they hadn't been set on one particular girl in mind. Dennis was really the one who chose the girl for the privilege of what they needed to do, and this girl, Casey, she ended up being the perfect choice (in his eyes at least).

Getting her out of the car while she was still unconscious and under the sedative effects of the chloroform spray proved easy. He'd simply went over to her side, unbuckled her seat belt, and had picked the girl up into his arms. The girl was light as a feather, hardly weighing anything, he thought. He left the keys in the car and left it running where it was, a few meters away from the area where he was intending to have her live with them until He arrived. That way, even if the car was found, it wouldn't be easy to lead it back to his whereabouts and where the girl was taken.

Once he reached the gates, he shifted the girl a little in his left arm while pulling his yellow handkerchief out of his pocket with his free hand. He wiped the gate thoroughly before unlocking it with his keys, the girl's head lolling around on his shoulder. Fortunately, it was deserted outside and dark. No one would dare catch them and, even if they did, Dennis was fairly confident he'd be able to take care of it easily.

As the gate creaked open, he looked around quickly, making sure it was in fact completely deserted, his surroundings. No cars went past down the street and there were no people in sight. Adjusting the girl into his arms again, he slipped through the gate then grabbed his handkerchief again, using it over his palm and fingers in order to swing the gate shut instead of having to use his hands and risk the chance of catching any unpleasant bacteria.

One swift turn of the key and the gate was locked, and it was then Dennis felt a sudden thrill, a sudden surge of excitement filter through him. It wasn't often he felt something such as excitement lately, but there was huge sense of accomplishment there, of fulfillment.

 _He'd done it. He'd actually done it._

He'd gotten an Impure, a pretty piece of sacred food, for His homecoming. And there she was, in his arms, utterly still and not screaming, passed out and breathing heavily from the sedative effects of the chloroform gas. Important of all, was that soon... _soon..._

 _Soon no one would doubt them and what they were capable of._

 _Soon He would be arriving and no one would make fun of them ever again._

Once he got inside with the girl, he laid her down on the cool linoleum flooring that covered the ground. Her head lolled again, as if she was slowly regaining her conscious bit by bit, but that didn't matter. There would be nowhere for her to go now, nowhere for her to run.

Sighing loudly, he straightened the bottom of his dress shirt while he stood beside the girl sprawled out on the ground, marveling at his work. Patricia would be pleased. Or, well, at least he hoped she would be, with his accomplishment. The girls arms were hanging limply at her sides, her hair a dark net spread out around her as she slept off the gas. She looked almost angelic, he thought, as he cocked his head, watching her.

He'd seen quite a few pretty girls in his time, but her... this Casey, she definitely took the cake. She was the prettiest of all, and if they hadn't- No. He stopped himself from finishing that thought as an uncomfortable pickling heat of shame hit his cheeks. He shouldn't be thinking this way, particularly not when Patricia or any of the others could overhear him.

 _They had a purpose for her. No matter how pretty he found her, they had a purpose._

Dennis adjusted his glasses with a sigh, giving his arms and shoulders a little shake, readying his muscles for what he had to do next.

Then he bent down, grasping the girls hands. He began dragging her along slowly down the corridor. The beams of light above the walls flickered incessantly. He tried to keep his eyesight away from the girl as he dragged and slid her down the long corridor towards the room he'd built strictly for the ones of them that had her exact purpose.

 _No looking at her prettiness. No touching._

...

Casey felt so tired, so heavy. As if it took all of her energy to even simply open her eyes- energy that she couldn't even muster up right then.

She could feel both the material of her sweater and her singlet riding up over her back, her skin greeting cold hard floor below her. She felt the sense of moving slowly, of being dragged. Faintly, in the distance, it seemed, she could hear an electrical pulse, like the sizzling of a light flickering on and off. And footsteps. She could hear footsteps from someone near her head too.

When she finally managed to muster up that energy, she forced her eyelids to pop open, her eyes catching a dank hard surface above her from the ceiling. Dull concrete with plain white paint. A bright beam of luminescence from what she had correctly assumed was a flickering light caught at the corner of her eyes, making them start to weep. Little black dots formed her vision.

Thirsty. She was so unbearably thirsty, Casey realized. Her lips felt stuck together, dried together with no moisture. She used her tongue to part her lips, licking at them tentatively as a spasm of panic darted through her at the cold, dank unfamiliar surroundings they she had woken in.

But then her eyes. Her eyes began to grow heavy again, a fatigue unlike anything she had ever felt overcoming her again. Maybe a drink to moisten her mouth and hydrate her would have to wait. The follicles of her long hair pulled and snagged against the floor and beneath her shoulders as she continued to feel that peculiar sensation of floating, of being dragged.

And then she let her eyes fall shut again.

...

Dennis left her at the door as he opened it, getting the room ready.

It had taken a while to prepare everything for this moment to come. He'd spent hours in the room, preparing it, making sure it was ready and that there was no chance of the sacred food to escape. In his view, the room was the exact definition of faultless.

He'd had to put a bit of work in to make sure it was completely secure. Although he wasn't an expert at building or a carpenter of any sort, Dennis thought he'd worked well and resourcefully. He'd made sure the room was completely sealed, and had thought of various ways someone could attempt to escape. The room was virtually inescapable.

Wrenching his folded handkerchief out of his trouser pocket, he bent down towards the frame of the bed, running it along the edges to collect some of the dust that had gathered there. Everything had to be clean and presentable- especially the girl, and he knew that.

Satisfied, he turned back towards where he'd left the girl, grabbing her again. She couldn't have weighed more than 120 pounds, he estimated, and she was so easy. Reaching the bed, he bent down, scooping the girl up into his arms again, heaving and rolling her onto the bed with a grunt. She was so limp, so lifeless, but oh so warm.

He couldn't resist it one last time. Hastily, Dennis reached down with a shaking hand, curling his fingers into a fist. He let his knuckles scrape against the girl's cheekbone, admiring the softness, the warmth of her. She was puffing out small breathes through her lips as she slept off the sleeping gas.

It was the first time they'd had a girl alone, it occurred to him. He'd spent countless years throughout Kevin's childhood being the protector, the comforter. But all of them hadn't actually had a girl close to them before, a pretty young woman's company. Even when Kevin had started high school, even Barry, or Luke and Orwell- high school was spent getting through bullies and surviving.

Not ever having friends or having someone hang around them that was even remotely close to a 'girlfriend'. There was Dr. Fletcher, their psychiatrist, but she wasn't what Dennis would ever consider a girlfriend.

All their lives, it had been just them. A solitary life, a rather lonely one.

As Dennis stood back slowly while shoving both hands deep into his trouser pockets in case he began to feel tempted again, eyes fixated on the girl, an unfamiliar feeling swelled in his gut.

Maybe for once they all wouldn't be so lonely after all? Maybe this was their chance?

 _Pity. If only... if only she wasn't their chosen one, the food in the end that would sustain Him and start to rid the world of all filth._

...

Some countless hours or minutes later, Casey slowly regained consciousness.

The first thing that she became aware of was that she was lying on something spongy and soft, like a bed or cushion or something. She opened her eyes slowly, finding herself laying on her stomach, the side of her face pressed against a mattress.

Second thing she was aware of, was that horrible dry taste in her mouth. Water. She needed water or something to drink so badly.

Lifting her hands, she braced them on either side of her, pushing up slowly. All her limbs and muscles felt strangely weak and tired, as if she'd just used them energetically for hours and now she was suffering the pain of it. Pursing her lips, she forced her groggy eyes forward, surveying where she was.

It was a completely unfamiliar room. Old wooden planks and nails lined the wall furthest from her, where a door was with a single, small doorknob. Rolling slightly on her side, she glanced around, blinking heavily- her eyes and vision still oddly groggy and grainy. A bathroom came into view, all white tiled and immaculately clean. There was a sink with a white flower laid above it. A shower and bath with a see-through curtain. What she almost assumed was a toilet in there as well.

Nothing about the room was familiar at all. How did she even come to get here?

Pushing herself up by her elbows, she sat up fully, sweeping a few strands of her long dark hair out of her eyes. It was so confusing. She had no idea where or why she was there at all. Until...

Fractured memories of the last few hours came to her. Her Uncle calling her asking where she was. Him coming to pick her up in his car. Then-

Then that man, the one who had watched her through the barbed-wire fence at school, commenting on his disgusting it was that she'd had a mark on her sleeve. Just like that, it all made sense and she remembered.

 _That guy... Dennis? He'd said his name was Dennis. He'd brought her here. He'd taken her and had placed her in this room._

Sitting up straighter, she brought her legs up towards her chest, hardly caring her Converse sneakers were on the bed. There was some sort of stone work near her bed, a stone wall with a few small lights that lit it up softly. She glanced around again. Still, no matter how many times she looked around, she still couldn't make much sense of it all.

So she understood now, that this 'Dennis' guy had taken her and put her here. She just wasn't entirely sure of what his intentions were with her.

He'd sprayed something on her- she'd recalled that much as well. Something that clearly had some sleeping effect on her. She couldn't exactly recall anything after that happening. He'd sprayed something on purpose at her to make her pass out because he'd gotten irritated by her questions.

And now, here she was, in a room, all by herself. Where was this 'Dennis' guy anyway? Was this his house?

Her eyes flew to the immaculate in-built bathroom again. The white tiles shone brightly, they were so clean. This obviously had to be his house. If her first impressions of the man were correct, he was obviously a clean freak. Maybe even bordering on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, judging by how freaked out and stressed he was at there mere sight of a small, smudged blood smeared stain on her jacket sleeve.

If so, then... what did he want with her? Her mind ran with so many questions as she held her knees in to her chest, rocking a little. And her Uncle John. He'd clearly hit her Uncle before jacking his car. Was her Uncle alive or was he... dead? Had he just knocked him out?

Disturbingly, Casey realized she didn't feel how she probably ought to have felt at the idea of her Uncle John being dead. If he was truly gone, if this 'Dennis' guy had in fact fatally hurt him... Was it terrible that she felt nothing but an almost odd sense of calm and relief at the thought? Uncle John had been the last living member of her family and yet... the idea of him potentially being dead, it hardly phased her at all. If anything, she felt utterly emotionless and almost apathetic to the fact. So what did that make her- a terrible human being?

Her confused and racing thoughts came to a sudden screeching crash when she heard the noise. The doorknob near the door jiggled.

 _He was coming back for her. To do what, exactly?_

Swallowing against a dry lump in her throat, Casey rocked back closest against the stone wall behind her, feeling immediately tense and alert, like a gazelle being alerted to the sound of a lion approaching. The door knob jiggled once more, then it slowly creaked open. She held her breath, stomach tensing.

 _And him._ He appeared suddenly, hand pushing the door open, fingers wrapped tightly around the door knob. The instance it opened and he appeared, his eyes went straight to her, staring at her through the black rimmed glasses. He was still wearing his odd 'military' all plain grey uniform. Only thing different now, Casey saw as she watching him warily, was that he held something wooden in his other arm. He was carrying something.

He did not speak as he stepped into the room that she was essentially caged in. He only opened up that wooden thing, unfolding it, which it occurred to her a second later was simply a fold-out chair. His eyes remained on her, unwavering and intense, even as he yanked that same yellow handkerchief she had seen him use before. He bent at the knees, wiping the chair several times, as if making it clean before he sat.

It confirmed Casey's initial suspicions. _Yes, the man indeed was anal about cleanliness._

He stood in front of the chair, folding up that handkerchief into neat little squares before shoving it back inside his trouser pocket. Then, as if satisfied, he hitched up his grey trousers and sat down. Casey's stomach lurched with the unknown of what was to come next and, unconsciously, she pulled her knees in tighter to her chest, wrapping her arms protectively around her jean-clad legs nervously.

It felt as if an eternity went past as this 'Dennis' stared at her while folding his arms against his chest. Casey never knew a man's stare could be so disturbing before, so intense. She fidgeted uncontrollably with her sleeves, yanking them over her knuckles with her fingers for something to do as his unnerving stare continued to bore into her. It was so silent in the room that Casey felt as if she couldn't even hear him- or herself- breathing.

 _Was he waiting for her to say something? Or... what? Was he finally going to explain what his intentions were?_

He had that weird look on his face again, that jaw-set, sucking-on-something-unpalatable look, the corners of his lips pulled downward, eyebrows furrowed. Then Casey thought she saw his eyes drop to her sneakers for the briefest second from where they were, on the bed, as she held herself still. She tilted her head forward slightly, aware that strands of her hair were falling into the sides of her face, yet she didn't care on brushing it out of the way. If anything, it made her feel better, the hair covering her face. The less he could stare at, the better.

And then he cleared his throat, hoarsely and curtly. "Take your shoes off the bed," he finally spoke, breaking that disturbing silence between them where he'd just simply gawked at her. Casey noticed it was a hard order; His voice was demanding, yet it also was tinged with a sense of urgency.

It took her a moment to get her head straight. She blinked at him, mouth falling open. "Um, W-what?"

"Your shoes," he repeated, letting his arms fall to his sides. Casey watched numbly as he raised a hand, pointing it towards the place where her shoes were, on the mattress for emphasize. "Get them off the bed." His voice shook a little as he let his impatience show, and if Casey was not mistaken, she realized this was him freaking out again. First about the stain on her jacket and now... this.

"O-oh." Weakly, she uncrossed her ankles, pushing her feet slowly off the bed. The tips of her Converse sneakers fell on the floor heavily.

He crossed his arms over his chest again, lifting his chin and head slightly higher, as if satisfied, happy by her actions. Then, without warning he stood from the chair briskly and grabbed it, snapping it shut. Before Casey could manage to ask anything or scream out anymore questions to get some answers into his motives, 'Dennis' stiffly turned his back on her and strode briskly out of the room.

Not even bothering to glance back at her or say anything else, he slammed the door shut behind him. All Casey could do was sit as she was, staring blankly at the spot the man had just left, blinking heavily, dazed.

Nothing made sense to her at all.

...

Casey had no idea how long she sat there for, frozen, staring absently around the room.

She had no idea what the time currently was or what her Uncle John's state was. There was no window in the room to look out of, to judge the time. She didn't have her phone on her or anything to contact her Uncle with, not anything to call the police or raise the alarm for her with. Everything that she did have, before, had obviously been left behind, in her backpack, in her Uncle's car.

After a while, sitting around thinking became unbearable. She could really use a drink. Pushing up off her sneakers, she moved cautiously towards the clean bathroom, peeking in. For a moment there, Casey had almost expected another person to pop out. Or even something grotesque like a dead body be found in the bathtub. Her mind must have been playing tricks on her because there was nothing there.

Trying to be quiet as she didn't want to alert the man to her movement and the fact that she were now moving around, doing things, she reached the sink and pushed the tap on, running cold water.

She scooped her long hair back away from her neck with one hand as she bent down, her other hand going beneath the tap water, cupping it. As a decent amount of cool water streamed into her hand, she lifted it up towards her mouth, slurping it in and swallowing it down greedily.

The first mouthful of water soothed her dry mouth wonderfully and she sighed in relief before putting her hand under the stream again, slurping at and throwing some more of the cool water over her overheated face and panicked, tired eyes.

Once she felt done and no longer thirsty, she switched off the tap and went out of the bathroom while wiping her wet hands dry on the back of her jeans. It was then she heard it, in the silence in the room. Voices. Two voices. Casey felt her breath hitch in her throat, an immediate surge of hope filling up her chest as she paced towards the wooden door slowly- the one, sole exit out of the room.

She heard someone speak again- someone's voice that was not Dennis's and that hope grew even more profound as she flung herself up against the wood, craning her neck sideways and pressing her ear against the door.

A woman. There was that Dennis guy's voice, and then a woman's. A woman!

 _"Dennis, admit what you've done."_ There. Casey leaned closer, trying to hear everything she could through the door. The woman had an accent, her voice a lilting English. There was something weirdly comforting about her voice; It was barely above a whisper, yet clear enough that Casey could hear every word she spoke from her place eavesdropping through the door in the room.

 _"Don't get upset."_ Dennis. Dennis spoke this time, and Casey thought he sounded irritated. Irritated and impatient, as if the woman were overreacting. _"This is for all of us."_

 _"For all of us? For Him, you mean?"_

 _"Yes, I mean for Him as well. Just don't get upset."_

" _Don't tell me, I'm getting frightened. I could hear you- just the slightest, faintest snippet of what's going on in your mind."_ The English woman again. Whatever they were speaking in reference to, Casey could hear the hint of panic in her voice, laced with a genuine-sounding amount of concern. _"I thought you'd had this all under control, this little thing of yours?"_

 _"Well, the food is waiting."_

 _"Do you mean to tell me that she is in that room? Already?"_ Casey faintly heard the sound of high heels clicking against the floor. It sounded as if the English woman was approaching the door, about to open it, to see her.

Casey reared back immediately on the balls of her feet, swiftly backing away from the door as the clacking of heels grew even louder and closer. He lived with a woman, a woman who clearly was not expecting her to be in the room. Would she help her get out? Would she show Casey some pity and help her?

The doorknob rattled and then the door swung open as the clacking of a pair of shiny black stilettos stopped as the woman paused at the entrance of the room to look at Casey where she stood, mouth agape, heart in her throat.

 _The woman. The English woman who she assumed was another person in the house- a person completely unlike this 'Dennis' who had done this to her in the first place was-_

'Dennis' stood there, although he was clearly not 'Dennis'. He was wearing a ruffled, knee-length purple skirt and a tight maroon sweater, with a necklace. "Not to worry," he spoke reassuringly, only it was not 'Dennis's' voice but the English woman's voice, as she half-smiled at Casey consolingly, "I'll talk to him, he listens to me."

All Casey could seem to do was stare.

"He's not well, you see," they continued, and the more they spoke, the more Casey could actually notice how unlike they actually were from the previous man that she had met. There was no sour-look, no austere stiffness to this person. "He knows what you're here for. What you're really, _really_ , here for, and it's not for him. He knows your purpose."

It was as if they were trying to make Casey feel better, as if they believed all that they were saying should offer her a sense of relief or consolation. She felt anything but relieved or comforted. All she felt was confused, slightly scared, and... as if she were dreaming. It all suddenly felt so surreal.

"He's just always had a weakness for pretty things, you see," they added gently. "But he knows not to touch you and that you are not for him. He knows he's not allowed."

 _Not for him? Just who was she for then?_

Before another word was exchanged or before Casey could even begin to make sense of it all, Dennis?- or the English woman?- strode out of the room with a sway to her hips as she walked, stilettos clacking loudly as the door was slammed shut again.

Casey stood there, feeling unable to move. She could hardly feel her legs, or anything below the neck. What the hell was going on? It occurred to her a belated second later that her hands were balled up into tight fists and that they were trembling. Just when she thought she couldn't get anymore confused about the circumstances she found herself in, there she was.

It didn't make any sense at all. And the fact that it didn't, it made this whole entire thing feel all the more frustrating and scary. And how she was 'not for him'? How he apparently had a 'weakness for pretty things'?

That door knob suddenly went at it again with its jiggling and Casey jumped, startled. She had no idea who was going to be coming in next but... when it opened, Dennis appeared, not the 'English woman Dennis'.

He was back in his grey military style attire, glasses on, only there was a bucket in his hand this time that had what appeared to be a few bottles of cleaning products in them. Casey felt her shoulders slump from their tense position as he broke their stare while he turned to shut the door completely closed on them both in the room.

Then, she watched, vigilant and on-guard, as he strode towards the bathroom briskly without a further word. A moment later, she heard a gruff noise, a panicked loud outburst that echoed and bounced around the tiles.

"N-no!" he yelped, immediately backing away out of the bathroom to look at her. She caught the tension around his eyes and forehead, that anal stressed-out look having returned that Casey now had quickly learned in the short measure of time in his company was due to his standards of cleanliness being broken. "Please, remember to keep all of your area neat," he insisted, that edge of impatience there in his voice. "The bathroom is unacceptable and there's water all over the floor." He raised a hand to wave it at the bathroom area irritably.

Casey felt her cheeks color a little at realizing she must have spilled water on the floor when cupping frantic mouthfuls of it into her mouth with her hand to drink it down.

He turned his attention to the contents inside the bucket hurriedly. "To make it easy, I've color-coded these. Use the blue bottle for the floor"- there, he picked it out of the bucket, showing it to her as if he was demonstrating what to do- "and this pink bottle here for the ceramic surfaces." He pulled the last bottle out, which contained some sort of pink cleaning liquid.

Just like before in the past few instances in his company earlier, he appeared so frazzled and stressed-out. Casey had never seen someone get so tense and frustrated over what she deemed something so trivial before. She noticed he was even trembling slightly and breathing heavily through his mouth as he gestured twice with a swing of his arm for her to come closer towards the bathroom.

She figured he surely was no harm to her right now, given how stressed he was, though she still hesitated before inching forward on the tiptoes of her Converses warily. She kept her eyes on his and he stared back in that unnerving, unwavering way, his blue eyes shining with what appeared apprehension and something else Casey could not quite identify.

He held the handle of the bucket out to her the further she approached and as she reached down to grasp her hand around it, she noticed he quickly let it go and stepped back towards the wall furthest from her, as if being near her alone was dangerous for him. Absently, she noted that she only just barely reached his shoulders- he was so tall. Why she let herself acknowledge that when it wasn't particularly a comforting observation to her, she had no idea.

As she went into the bathroom, under the light Casey could, indeed, see the splotches of water she had left on the floor messily. As she let the bucket drop to the tiles and sank down to kneel on the cool surface, she tilted her head, glancing up at him again apprehensively. He stepped forward, swooping in and blocking access out of the bathroom as he stood completely in the doorway. If the man so happened to get it inside his head to attack her right then inappropriately, in the small confines of the bathroom, Casey didn't like her chances of escaping.

Casey swallowed inaudibly as she lifted her chin, keeping her eyes on nothing else but his as he stared down at her from where he stood, blocking the access out. She remembered many years ago, during her childhood, how her father had expressed to her that it was important to never show your fear, your weakness, when it comes to looking and maintaining eye-contact with your competitor. So much as break eye-contact, flinch, make any movement whatsoever and you show your weakness, your fear. Keeping that in mind, she kept her eyes resolutely on the man as he stood there, eyeing her somewhat seriously.

He plunged both hands slowly into his trouser pockets before he began, in a low but empathetic voice, as if dying for her to understand and be reassured, "Patricia has just reminded me that I was sent to get you for a reason, and that... you are sacred food." He paused for a moment, brows crinkling oddly as if he was struggling with coming to terms with what he had to say. Casey kept her gaze on nothing else but his as he glanced away towards the clear shower curtain for a brief moment, a sharp exasperated sigh coming from his mouth. "I-I'm to promise not to bother you again."

Bother her again? _Again?_ What?

He shook his head several times,that sour look overcoming his face like even the idea alone of not bothering her was unpalatable and disappointing to him. Then he lowered his gaze to his shoes, which Casey took in were squeaky clean, shiny black loafers, with no stains or marks on them in sight. Head still hanging low like a depressed dog with its tail between its legs, Dennis turned and made his way out of the bathroom towards the other door with another heaved sigh.

She heard a bunch of keys clanging together, then the door opening again. As he shut her in, she heard the foreboding sound of a key going into a lock. And then, for the first time since fully being in the house, Casey was completely locked in, with no way out and nowhere else to go. For the first time since waking up in that room, Casey began to feel caged. Caged, trapped, and suffocated.

 **WOW, thank you all so much for your comments and the alerts I've received on this, I've just done this for my own weird fun and pretty much wanted to switch the story a bit to give it a more Casey/Dennis feel (no matter how creepy it's going to be haha). Thanks so much and I hope you please let me know your thoughts :)**


	5. Chapter 5

Casey sat still crouched on the cold surface of the bathroom floor, braced and waiting for either this Dennis or the English woman Dennis to make their return. It seemed like endless seconds and minutes had gone past, an eternity, while she kept her back straight and shoulders tense, listening for any sound of their emergence back into the room. Her stomach kept twisting and gnawing painfully at the idea of having to be near the man again.

But...eventually, as time continued to pass and she heard no sound- no clacking of stilettos or no clattering of keys bashing against each other as the door was unlocked to the room she was being held in for in-explainable reasons beyond her- Casey realized that perhaps the man was keeping his promise on not to bother her anymore.

Apparently someone called Patricia had reminded him not to. But who was Patricia? Obviously another accomplice, another person that was doing this to her. While Casey didn't know much and so many things about her current situation scared and confounded her, she was confident of one thing: This Dennis man was not doing this alone. He was working with others.

Thinking about everything simply served to make her head throb and ache, so Casey tried to distract herself and keep busy. Sniffling loudly, she grabbed the blue bottle out of the bucket and lowered the nozzle to the bathroom floor, spraying carelessly over the stains of water she'd left on there earlier. She reached over for a white fluffy towel that was hanging neatly near the clear shower curtain and yanked it down, using it to wipe the floor vigorously while she crouched over it on her knees.

Doing something as boring and basic as cleaning seemed to clear her mind, at least. She focused all her energy into wiping every single bit of surface she could find roughly, enough that her heart rate soured, working up a bit of a sweat. Tendrils of her hair fell around her temples limply as she thought of nothing else but wiping with the towel and using her arms and shoulder muscles enough until they grew sore from the exertion.

She eyed around the bathroom again, searching, as she scrubbed. It was empty and spotless- no shampoo or conditioner in the shower, nothing to potentially use as something to defend herself with. Not that she probably ever would- unless the timing was completely right. If there was one thing she'd learned about fighting back when it came to dealing with her Uncle John, if you fought back, it only increased the tendency for violence and pain to be directed back at you. Often, it was better to lie back and take it, while dying silently on the inside.

No windows in the bathroom, nothing for ventilation or anything she could use to potentially escape out of.

Finished with cleaning and with a tingling dull ache to her arms, she folded the towel back up as neatly as possible and tossed the blue bottle back into the bucket. Then she got to her knees, pushing up onto the tips of her Converse sneakers to stand.

She went back into the other room slowly, the one with merely a cot bed with a thin blanket and one puffy pillow. No windows in the room either but she noticed a small little vent up above her bed. Casey nibbled on her lower lip with her teeth as she wondered where it might lead out to.

Could it lead out of the building or this house if she crawled far enough? She didn't even know whether this place was even a large building or not. Was she still even in the same continent where she lived with her Uncle? Casey had no idea.

Too many things didn't make sense, Casey thought restlessly as she paced the small room, locking around. She was definitely locked in - the sound of keys and look turning when Dennis had exited the room had made it clear enough, so she was stuck, alone, confined to a small stuffy room with nothing but endless confusion and unanswered questions to keep her company.

 _The English Woman Dennis. All this talk of Casey just being 'sacred food', how she was going to be presented to someone and that she must keep clean?_

She eyed the flat cot bed before sitting down on it slowly, bringing up her knees and legs as she pushed back and rolled towards the wall behind it. While this Dennis guy had seemed aggravated that she had kept her shoes on the bed, Casey couldn't care less now that he was no longer here. She grabbed the single white pillow and pushed it behind her back, making it more comfortable as she sat up closest to the wall behind her, facing the door- the one and only exit in her entire cage. At least where she was positioned, she'd know and hear it first thing if he tried to enter the room again.

Eventually, her eyes grew heavy and keeping them open was a battle. She wiggled down lazily, scooting down the cot, until she turned on her side, half-hugging the pillow and half resting her cheek against it. She yanked down her red flannel jacket and pairs of singlets she wore underneath it self-consciously in case the skin on her stomach showed, drew her legs up, knees lightly pressing into her stomach so that she felt protected and comfortable, and forced her eyes to shut completely closed.

With the silence in the room, the mild exhaustion from her mindless scrubbing in the bathroom and the pale minimal lighting, it didn't take her long. She breathed through her nose deeply, in and out, a few times. And then she fell, drifting off into a numb, empty void.

...

 _"Psst, wake up."_

If she'd had anything left within her, she would have burst into tears immediately at the sound of his voice, calling her, interrupting her, beckoning her awake.

 _"Casey, wake up, come on..."_

He always liked to pretend it was such a fun joke at first. His voice was always light, always gently coaxing. But then he'd always shift, he'd always turn.

Half-asleep, she twisted and mumbled and turned, holding the pillow tighter around her head, shielding her face.

 _"Casey..."_

Even through her sleepiness, she sensed the shift, from man to monster, the instance he spoke her name out loud for the second time. His voice became deeper, laced with irritation, with impatience.

 _"Wake up,"_ he said, his voice floating around her, surrounding her unpleasantly. _"Come with me into my room."_

Even with her eyes closed, lids covered in darkness, she sensed his nearness. The springs on her mattress creaked beneath his weight as he leaned over it towards her. His stubby fingers brushed her cheek and lingered before he tucked a stray strand of her dark hair behind her ear.

 _"Come on, Casey Bear!"_ Without warning, he squeezed her jaw with his stubby fingers wrapped around her chin, snapping, and she gasped, her eyes popping open, scanning around her room dozily. It was too dark. She could only just make out the shadow, the imprint of his face hovering over her, _"Now, Casey."_ He pushed her face forward towards him, fingers tightening into her skin, clenching, making the sides of her gums and her teeth ache painfully, _"Do you really think your father would appreciate you disobeying me- his brother John, your Uncle- in this way, Casey? You think he'd be happy to hear that you aren't being very nice?"_

She tried to wrench her jaw and head away out of his grip, trembling violently, but like always, he was too strong. Always too strong physically, but... if only she'd had her dad's old hunters rifle.

 _"Good girl. Get up and come to my room so that we can play one of our games,"_ he said, at last releasing her, climbing off the bed. _"Come on, but remember to take off your stuff..."_

...

Casey jolted, her eyes popping open, stomach contorting and clenching with sickening unease, heart pumping loudly in her ears. Before she could control herself, she was dissolving into hot, salty tears before she even had the time to reassess and acknowledge that, _thank god, it wasn't reality, it was just a terrible stupid nightmare and her Uncle, wherever he was, if he was even alive right now after what the Dennis man had done in jacking his car, leaving him on the side of the road, he could just go and blow her for all the things that he'd done to her over the years..._

Nine years old. It had started when she was nine, maybe even when she was a little younger than that. First, he made it seem like games, where they were animals, playful games, before she even knew what was right and what was wrong. All she knew was how it had felt, at the time, how it had destroyed her. How he'd killed that little girl in her, changed her forever, invading her, ruining everything that she once was.

And then her father had to go and die of a heart attack, and then he'd won custody because her mother was dead, and there was no one else. Her legal guardian, and he hadn't stopped, even when she grew older, had more sense of awareness into just what it was he was doing and how he was violating her.

But she was gone now, far far away, wherever she was. He couldn't touch her now, couldn't wake her up in the middle of the night with all his sick and twisted games.

She was free. Still, it couldn't erase all the damage he had done. Thanks to him, Casey now felt she was a lost cause. And maybe she was, ruined, destroyed forever.

She started to sob loudly in the pillow, awake now but not fully conscious of remembering just where she was. She let herself sob loudly, howling all her grief, her pain, her anger and resentment. All the stuff she mainly kept bottled up inside, private and to herself. _And then-_

"You make lots of sounds in your sleep. Lots of crying, too."

She felt as if she'd almost had a heart attack, if possible given her young age, at the sudden unexpectedness of the voice that sounded practically out of nowhere.

She cut off her sobbing at once, pressing her hands over her mouth to stifle her cries and suppress her noise as she sat up hurriedly, pressing her back roughly into the wall behind the cot, dark blurred eyes frantically blinking around the room.

She found the person responsible for that comment at once and it was _him_. Him, only he wasn't wearing his glasses and the grey military style clothing. Casey sniffed loudly as she readjusted slowly to the living world, eyes remaining on the 'Dennis' man that was sitting, cross-legged, in the doorway, staring right at her. He must have been watching her sleep for a very long time. Enough to hear her crying and experiencing her nightmare, anyway.

Her stomach lurched at having been caught crying hysterically. It was funny. Shouldn't she have felt terrified of the man's sudden emergence back into the room and the fact that he had been obviously spying on her while she was fitfully sleeping? Weirdly enough, Casey felt anything but terrified. Only slightly mortified that he'd clearly seen and witnessed her moment of weakness.

It took her a second to find her voice as hot tears rolled uncontrollably down the creases of her eyelids, down to her cheek. "Do... do I?" she croaked out, hastily reaching up, swiping her shed tears away on the sleeve of her flannel jacket.

"Mmm-hmm." He straightened up against the wall, eyeing her as a smile graced his face. She couldn't remember seeing the man Dennis smile before. "You're pretty," he added, practically out of nowhere. Casey blinked at him slowly, the next comment making a shiver course through her spine, "Mr Dennis thinks you're real pretty too."

"W-What?" she gasped out, unsure whether to laugh or not. Nothing made sense to her at all so far. But as she observed the 'Dennis' man from where he sat, cross-legged in the open doorway to the room, it occurred to her that he felt... oddly different. There was an aura there, something unexpected that had Casey's head reeling.

Instead of the cold dead eyes of this Dennis, there was almost... a bright sheen to his eyes. Excitement, playfulness. In fact, his clothes were far different from Dennis's also. He wore dark blue track pants and a hooded jacket with yellow and blue. Just like 'Dennis the English woman' with the skirt and stilettos. What the hell was going on?

 _And to say Mr Dennis thought she was pretty? Wasn't he Mr Dennis?_

"A-aren't you Mr Dennis though?" she asked slowly after a moment, trying to make sense of it all. "Aren't you him, the... the guy that took me?"

"What?" He snorted suddenly out loud at her question, looking as though he was trying to hold in a laugh. Casey's head spun. "No, I'm not Mr Dennis!" He stated it as though he thought she were crazy, thinking him and the 'Dennis' guy the same person. He shook his head several times as a startling soft snicker escaped his mouth, one Casey definitely was not expecting considering the serious circumstances she'd found herself in. "My names Hedwig, duh!" He continued to stare at her, eyes wide, eyebrows raised, with a look that asked, _are-you-dumb?_

But Hedwig?

"But what... what about the English lady with the... the skirt?" she murmured, confused.

"What, are you blind?" Again, he was staring at her like he thought she was being silly. "That's Miss Patricia!"

Patricia. Hedwig. Dennis.

It came back to her all at once, the man 'Dennis's' words. _'Patricia has just reminded me that I was sent to get you for a reason...'_

 _But they were all the same person, weren't they? Unless-_

"I'm, like, not even supposed to be in here talkin' to you, I'm not even supposed to be here," he rattled on happily before Casey could even get the chance, "I stole the light from Mr Dennis but he's gonna be back real soon. I can't steal the light for too long 'cause he'll know I was talkin' to you and get angry."

He rolled his eyes at her, as if to say, _typical Mr Dennis_ , and Casey noticed he had a faint lisp when pronouncing certain words. There was something about him that was...almost childlike. Innocent. Just like with the 'English woman Dennis' he carried himself differently, with such a different air and stance to his posture. Dennis held himself so stiffly from all the times she had been in his company, with such severity and sternness. Yet, with this supposed Hedwig, he was slumped over at the shoulders, wide eyed with gleaming blue eyes of excitement and, Casey observed a second later, with the way his knees started bobbing up and down, that he could hardly sit still, he was so agitated with apparent excitement and restless.

Just like... a little boy.

"How... how old are you, Hedwig?" she asked.

"Nine," he declared proudly with a gleeful smile, straightening his shoulders. Obviously being nine years old was something that made him extremely happy. Casey's mind raced. So he was nine... mentally. But then, there was 'Dennis' and... 'Patricia'? "You sound like a dog when you sleep," he added brightly, as if an afterthought.

Casey decided she could humor him for a while. It was really better than being alone, lying on the bed while trying to shake off her grief right now. She sniffled one last time while bringing up her sleeve to run the cloth under both eyelids quickly, hoping to erase any traces of her tears.

"Do I?" She hesitated, then decided she may as well tell him the truth anyway, considering it wasn't something dangerous about herself for him to know, "I-I was... having a nightmare."

"Uh-huh. Mmm-hmm." Hedwig seemed to think that over very carefully, his head cocking to the side. "Sometimes I used to have nightmares too but... Mr Dennis says that nightmares are good and that nightmares are, like,. the bodies way of ridding itself of bad memories. Etcetera." He shrugged his shoulders heavily.

"Oh, r-really?" Casey latched onto that piece of information, making herself more comfortable on the cot, leaning off the wall and forward towards him eagerly, "So w-what are your nightmares about?"

She wasn't entirely sure what she was doing or why she was trying to get personal information out of him. All she knew was that, oddly enough, speaking to 'Hedwig', even if nothing of this actually made real sense to her at the moment, it made her feel strangely comfortable. Almost like he was harmless, he felt safe. Odd considering, wasn't he exactly the 'Dennis man' in physical appearance?

"Hmm, I can't really tell you." She watched as, stubbornly, he turned his head, looking away from her on purpose. It seemed to her that he was almost enjoying keeping it a secret from her. "I just had two hot dogs for dinner."

His casual mention of hot dogs made Casey realize she was actually quite hungry. She hadn't eaten anything for quite a while and, since being abducted and taken away into the room, no one had given her anything to eat. "Uh, speaking of food, Hedwig," she began apprehensively, shifting closer on the bed until she pushed her legs off one side of it, "Do... do you think that maybe you could help me out? Get me some food?" She didn't want to get her hopes up or be too rude in asking, but she couldn't help it. Now that he'd mentioned food it made her realize she was ravenous.

"Hmm, no. Mr Dennis or Miss Patricia is in charge of the food. If I help you, I'll get in trouble."

"Not if we don't tell them?" she insisted, trying to sound as enticingly mischievous as possible. "It can be our little secret, just between you and me?"

Casey climbed off the bed and slowly sank to her knees, sitting a fair distance away from him as she heard 'Hedwig' hum deeply, thoughtfully. She could tell that he was starting to become torn and indecisive over her bargaining. And then her eyes caught past his shoulder the other room, brightly lit, and a surge of hope spread through her. It wasn't so much about being hungry about food anymore but... the chance of getting out. She could only just see the door behind his head, that must open into another room. What was out there? Outside? Fresh air and sunlight?

"Here, I know." It took almost everything she was worth to sound convincing, to sound playful and fun enough. "Let's do this." She held out a hand towards him, all fingers closed except her pinky finger. "Let's pinky promise on it, OK, Hedwig?"

To her relief, she saw the expression that came over his face, the joy at the thought of the pair of them almost being 'conspirators' keeping secrets from everyone else. It almost broke her heart as he smiled widely and shuffled closer to where she was sitting, kneeling on the floor, his guard completely down, like he truly was a child. It sort of reminded Casey of when she were younger, how naive she once was, how foolish.

She went along with her Uncle at the start so quickly, so loyally, without even once thinking he had malicious intentions for her. But then, Casey realized, that was children for you. So naive and trusting, until you break them in the end.

"Pinky promise?" he repeated once he got closer. He was so close, leaning near her with his head, that their noses almost touched. The close proximity of them, even whether he truly was a nine year old child mentally right now or not, it was disturbing. His eyes widened at her as he eyed her uncertainly. "What's that?"

"Well, we touch our pinky fingers together and then... we promise it's a secret, just between us," she explained, showing her finger to him, "And it's unbreakable, which means that we can never, ever repeat anything that we've said or done to each other with anyone."

'Hedwig' still seemed torn, looking between her pinky finger and his. Then he snickered in that childish way she'd heard before, and again it took Casey everything she was worth to not feel too bad as he finally relented.

"Hmm, OK. But you can't tell Mr Dennis or Miss Patricia, OK?"

"I won't. And it means that you can't either, Hedwig."

She held her breath as she leaned closer, bringing her hand closer to his. Her stomach clenched and she was the torn one the closer her pinky finger got to his. Did she really want to touch the man who had jacked her Uncle's car and was now responsible for keeping her in this place, only to do God knows what with? Forcefully, she pushed that aside for the sake of the game, quicking reaching over and wrapping her pinky finger around his before he could change his mind- or maybe even Casey change hers.

She felt her stomach spasm a little as 'Hedwig' lifted his gaze, eyes bright and shining back at her as their faces remained inches away from each other, their pinkies still clenched together tight in their 'promise'. She could hear his breathing increase and he laughed softly, shakily, as if beside himself with excitement for it all.

"Cool, so... does this mean we're gonna be besties, etcetera?" he asked her breathlessly, beginning to bounce on his knees while his eyes remained on hers intently. The happiness and excitement radiating off him towards her made Casey almost feel lightheaded and giddy.

"Um..."

"I've never had a real best friend before, none of us has!" His pinky finger was still gripping around hers and it tightened to the point Casey was struggling not to show any flinches of pain. While he may have seemed like a nine year old boy mentally, his strength was that of a normal man. "Miss Patricia sometimes says I'm too silly to ever have a best friend, especially a girl, and she makes me feel bad."

"Well, Miss Patricia's wrong. I would love to be your best friend, Hedwig."

"I have to go before I get into trouble!" Before Casey could mention anything more about food or attempt to work an advantage her way in getting out of the room, 'Hedwig' tore his pinky finger out from hers and jumped towards the door urgently.

It was only after he'd shut the door that she seemed to finally make sense of it all, in some way. 'Hedwig' believed he was a real nine year old boy. Then there was 'Patricia' and 'Dennis'- all the same person almost physically, but... multiple different identities?

 _"Oh, you poor naive child, thinking she is to be your friend."_ Suddenly, from where she knelt on the ground, she heard the voices coming from behind the door, only it wasn't Hedwig still. It was the English woman. Casey could hear the condescending manner to her voice, the spite.

 _"But... but she pinky promised_!"

 _"She's not here for you, to be your friend."_ The woman's voice was deadly quiet, yet had a certain level of cutting sharpness to it. _"You know her purpose perfectly well, she's tricking you!"_

Crying. Casey heard a whimpering crying noise next. It occurred to her a second later that it was Hedwig.

 _"There, there, dear. It's what girls like her do best. They're not fit for this world, you see? They know nothing..."_

 **Thank you all so much for your response to my story, I am so overwhelmed and amazed!**

 **This will follow Split but I wanted to mix it up a little so it isn't too word-for-word haha so I hope I am doing Ok with keeping the characters somewhat true to themselves. Hope I'm doing OK?**


	6. Chapter 6

After her nightmare earlier and having met Hedwig, the boy- if she could even call him that- Casey found she could not drift off to sleep again. Her mind wouldn't allow her to, like it had for a brief while last time. She found all she could do was sit there on the spongy mattress of the cot pushed closest to the wall, frozen, facing the door in case he came in again, in whatever form it was he was going to take next; Either the Dennis man, the English woman, or the boy Hedwig.

All she could do was sit there, hoodie of her jacket draped over her neck, legs up to her chest protectively and arms draped around her stomach, drained both emotionally and physically, while she thought.

It was gradually starting to make some reasonable amount of sense now.

He must have Disocciative Identity Disorder. She'd heard of that condition while doing research into mental illnesses and psychological conditions once on a project at school. She thought she'd read somewhere that it was a somewhat rare disorder, brought on by a horrific state of trauma or abuse. That different personalities form, a sort of coping mechanism.

Was that what this guy had? Was this why he appeared to be the austere 'Dennis' one instance, then... the English lady and then... 'Hedwig', the nine year old boy?

Her stomach rumbled, interrupting her frantic thoughts. Casey hadn't felt such hunger before, couldn't even remember the last time she had eaten anything. She gnawed on her bottom lip with her teeth as she brought her arms down, squeezing tighter into her stomach to comfort herself from the unbearable hunger she felt.

Maybe this was this guys intentions for her? To make her starve? Not that she could really bring herself to care. To be honest, she couldn't exactly... care about anything right then. Her head was just filled with multiple questions about this guy, about him having this condition.

She knew all about pretending to be someone else, of course, the feeling of physically removing oneself from the body, of drifting off somewhere else, not being completely there. She'd felt she'd done that as a girl; Sometimes, when her Uncle John did what he did, she'd feel herself physically float off... like she was there, but she wasn't. Like she was there in body, while he touched her, did all his grotesque things to violate her, but... she was also somewhere else too. Somewhere safer, somewhere that he couldn't reach her mentally.

It was probably different than how it was for him, this guy. But imagine living like that, everyday? Casey couldn't even begin to imagine it, even although her own life was lousy enough.

His life must have sucked, in a different way compared to how hers did. Casey felt a strange sense of sadness for life he must live, even although her brain told her it was probably stupid of her to. Why feel pity and some sense of sadness for the guy that was doing this to her?

Her stomach growled and vibrated again furiously. She needed food. She needed to eat something so badly, and if only 'Hedwig' had stayed a little longer; She had been that close to convincing him, even if he did say it was the 'Dennis' guy and others who mainly dealt with the food.

...

Dennis was given the Light, and he found himself sitting at the kitchen table in the chair.

Patricia was hell-bent on him giving the girl a scolding due to what she'd said to Hedwig, in giving him false hope that they could become friends when, realistically, she was not there for that, that were no her purpose. _She was just food, a means to an end. A pretty piece of food, he had to give her that. But food none the less._

 _She would not matter in the end._

Dennis always got sent to do the heavy work; Protecting them all, righting other people's wrongs when they treated Kevin badly. Making sure everything was spotless, that there would be no unpleasant repercussions. He'd done all the meticulous planning, all the dirty work in getting the Impure girl ready so that, once He finally come, everything they had planned would come to fruition.

And now it was his duty to go scold the girl for putting the naive thought into Hedwig's head that they could ever be best friends- or something even remotely close to that. It was typical of Hedwig to believe the girl so quickly. He was just a child, after all. He had no sense, and the girl... she took advantage of that. It wasn't very nice of her.

He checked his watch, glancing down at the time from where it was strapped around his wrist. It was 8.50 in the evening.

While it may be late, a job was still a job. He rose from the chair dutifully while shoving his pair of glasses on.

 _Time to get down to business._

...

Casey's body jerked the instance she heard the lock on the door click open.

Her stomach twisted, her heart increasing in rate as she stared at the doorknob. It shook as it was grasped onto from the other side of the door.

 _He was out there. And now, he was coming in._

She knew who it was the instance she saw the yellow handkerchief wrapped and covering around the doorknob in order to stop his bare skin from touching it. He pushed it all the way open, moving in to stand in the middle of the room barely a meter away from her with a stride that seemed determined and purposeful.

Whatever the reason for his return into the cage that he held her captive in, it was obviously something he felt important and necessary.

Still, Casey felt the dread trickle into her heart as she immediately lifted her gaze to his face while she observed the way he hastily folded that handkerchief of his up. Casey wasn't sure if she was seeing things or not, but it appeared like his fingers were shaking a little while he did it.

At once, his cold dead blue eyes met hers through the lenses of his glasses, that sour eyebrow-puckered look gracing his features as he peered down at where she was, huddled in the corner trying to make herself small, on the cot bed.

Like always, she felt unnerved beneath his gaze. It took her everything she was worth not to shudder as he remained silent for a few beats, just staring down at her. Her Uncle John unnerved her, but it was... unlike the unnerving feelings this man 'Dennis' brought out of her. He made her feel as if little invisible spiders were crawling all over her skin but she tried her very hardest not to let her unease show through in her expression.

She stared and he stared back.

And then he breathed and sniffed in deeply through his nose, his jaw settling a little as if he were mentally prepping himself for something that was in store for her, she thought.

When he spoke, Casey could do nothing but listen attentively to his words. "Patricia just asked me to come in here to have a, uh, word with you." There was something foreboding, something menacing in his voice, almost like he was telling her off for something Casey hadn't known she'd done, "Apparently you were misleading and teasing the child."

Casey's brow furrowed at his words as her head whirled. _She'd mislead and teased the child? As in... the boy Hedwig?_ She thought her actions and the way she interacted with the boy over inside her mind, coming up blank. _She hadn't thought she had been teasing the boy at all, had she?_

Although... her heart froze up and seized a little in panic at what she had tried to do. She may have subtly been trying to get the 'boy' to lead her out of the room so that she could perhaps have a better look at her surroundings. She'd also tried to talk him into getting her some food, but that was only because she was genuinely, truthfully hungry. _She hadn't done anything too wrong, had she?_

"You made him think that you were gonna, uh, be something of a friend to him, and we can't have that." She watched nervously as 'Dennis' paused for a moment to close his eyes. Then his lips parted a fraction as he drew a deep, steady breath into his lungs, like he was calming himself from getting too mad at her. When he brought his eyes open, the reproachful look he gave her, eyes squinted, corners of his mouth pulled downward, it almost made Casey want to shy away. Like an adult chiding a child, her being the child. "You shouldn't make fun of children and play on their naivety. It isn't very nice."

Fire burned in her gut, and an urge to speak up, to defend herself gently came to light, "B-but I-I wasn't-" she muttered feebly, then trailed off apprehensively when she realized pleading her innocence was a lost cause.

The man was obviously determined to believe otherwise. "Yes, you were," he spoke with an unshakable amount of confidence. He didn't even need to raise his voice. "But don't worry, you'll get your dues in the end, you'll see."

 _Get her dues in the end?_ A jolt of fear prickled up her spine at how freaky he made that sound.

"You won't poke fun in the end. Not once He gets here."

There he was at it again, with the cryptic comments. Just like in the car, about her needing to be clean when they 'present her'. Casey was fairly certain he was speaking of the mysterious other person again, but it still didn't make sense to her.

She was still physically cringing inside over his stern words when suddenly, 'Dennis' licked his lips, wetting them with his tongue as his blue eyes darting down towards the lower half of her body. He must have seen something about the way she was positioned with her body on the bed that he didn't like, because she heard him give out an exasperated sigh heavily through his mouth as he shook his head.

"What did I tell you about your shoes, huh?" he muttered gruffly, and as Casey bent her neck to glance down at the way she had her body, she realized then.

 _Oh. He hadn't liked it when she'd put her sneakers on the bed before. Now, there she was, doing it again..._

"Do you realize how dirty shoes are?"

Immediately, Casey swung herself onto her side and pushed her legs off the bed, letting her Converse shoes hit the ground loudly in order to hopefully placate him as it had earlier. Apparently it was only just wishful thinking.

He shook his head again, that sour-sucking-on-a-lemon stare for her in place, "Do you realize how much filth and muck there is on the sidewalks?" He stared down at her shoes again pointedly. "You put your feet on the sheets, the sheets may as well be the sidewalk, teaming with bacteria and all that dirt and filth."

Casey wasn't sure whether he was deliberately making a point out of it so that she'd act remorseful, but she did anyway, dropping her chin a little, strands of her hair falling over her ears, "I-I'm sorry, I forgot..."

"You know what?" A new glint came in his eyes that made her stomach churn. "Remove them."

"W-what?" She'd overheard him, surely. She didn't want to give him her shoes. She needed them. "Remove m-my shoes?"

"Yeah, your shoes. Take them off." He gestured with a jerk of his head impatiently to her Converses. "Please," he then added, as if a polite afterthought.

Still, Casey didn't want to, but she realized she didn't exactly have any other choice. He watched her, expectant and waiting while he stood there.

He was the one in charge here, he was the one making the orders while he had her in here, wasn't he? She knew it was always better to comply rather than give any reason to be yelled or struck at so, twisting to the edge of the bed, she reached down, untying her shoe laces. All the while, she could feel his gaze burning into her as he watched every movement she did to take off her shoes. Casey thought she even heard him panting a little.

She bent down half off the bed to pick her shoe off once the laces were completely undone, her dark hair fell and swept in her face, obscuring her vision of him, and then-

He'd moved quickly. She gasped, flinching back automatically when suddenly, he was standing directly in front of her, over her, bent at the knees, arm outstretched. It took her a second later to realize he was simply bending down, reaching to take her shoes from her, fingers outstretched. But she hadn't been prepared for the man's imposing closeness.

Of course he wouldn't kneel completely down on his knees to grab her shoes despite his height. Like he'd want even his clean trousers to touch what he probably considered a germy floor. Still, she wasn't prepared for it, and she jerked back, her dark eyes flying up to meet his nervously as she swallowed.

Apparently he could read her nerves, because he held his hand up higher to her, fingers still outstretched, "Just getting your shoes," he murmured roughly, like he could tell he'd startled her. "I'm not gonna touch you, I just... uh..." He trailed off into a deep mumble as he reached down to grab her sneaker while waiting for the other one.

She kicked the other one off just as quickly, watching as he bent to grab that one. He held both her Converse sneakers in one hand with hooked fingers through the sides, holding them a hair's length away from his body as if they were contaminated with something that might spread if he dare let them touch the material of his clothes.

She met his eyes again anxiously while feeling oddly exposed with no shoes on. She hadn't worn socks to school that day, and her feet were now bare. He obviously noticed it too, because she saw his head cock to the side while his eyes swept over the sight of her black-polish coated toenails.

And then her stomach made a noise again, grumbling through the disturbing silence between her and the 'Dennis' man rudely.

His reaction to the sound was strange. He pursed his lips together tightly and clenched his eyes shut momentarily while using his free hand, raising his arm and sweeping his palm and fingers over his forehead several times while his other hand still held her Converses away from him like they were diseased.

"Of course," she thought she heard him grumble several times, although Casey wasn't sure if he was speaking to her or not. "Of course, you, uh... you must be hungry. I forgot about the food."

He shook his head and clapped his palm to his forehead a few times, as if berating himself over forgetting to give her food. Then, as 'Dennis' slowly reopened his eyes, she saw him glance away from her, down at her bare toes again while stepping back a few paces.

"We'll, uh, we'll get that sorted right away. Get off the bed and follow me."

Casey felt a surge of hope at his words. _Get off the bed and follow him? Was he actually going to let her come out of the room, her cage?_

She hesitated, biting down on her lip with not wanting to get her hopes up too much. But then he backed away even more, making a gesture with his arms for her to follow. The floor was colder than what she was expecting as she let her bare feet and toes touch it, but she pushed that discomfort aside.

She was finally getting some food.

She stood from the cot bed, her legs a little shaky. Then she followed slowly as he turned his back on her and led the way through the door.

Casey's eyes immediately swept her surroundings, searching for something, anything. Outside her cage, was another room, with another closed door. This room had an old computer on a desk and chair, among other things. She noticed a clothes rack with various articles of clothing on it.

She brought her eyes back to 'Dennis' warily from where he stood, at the door, his back turned on her, shoulders stiff. She caught him reach into his pocket, and he pulled out a set of keys. He unlocked the door with a key and then they went through the door to what opened up to be a dank, narrow hallway. The ceiling looked slightly rotten and moldy above them.

He dumped her Converse shoes on the ground loudly, then turned towards her, maybe to check and see what she was staring at. Hastily, Casey turned her head back so that their eyes immediately met, an ache of fear building in her chest. She didn't want him to catch her being too nosy in looking around, because then he'd notice her intentions of having a good inspection of her surroundings for anything she could use, any potential escape points when the time came later on if need be.

"The kitchen's just down here to your right," he murmured, and she noticed him blink heavily at her through the glasses a few times. "We go straight through that doorway." He made a vague gesture with his arm, beckoning for her to follow him along again.

Casey did, her bare feet slapping gently against the hard cold floor.

He stood back up against the wall and waited for her while Casey inched closer towards the entryway to the right, like he'd said. She glanced around cautiously before entering. It seemed, as he'd said, a little kitchen area. There was a refrigerator and sink. A small table and chairs.

She almost jumped out of her skin when he abruptly walked in, yanking a chair out from the table loudly. The legs screeched against the floor harshly as he stepped back to look at her. "Please, sit."

She complied and did what he said at once, using his distraction of opening the refrigerator in order to get her some food to her advantage. What little she had seen so far of where he was holding her it looked... unwelcoming. Yet chaotic and confusing, all the decorations. As if there truly were multiple people fighting for space in the kitchen.

"We don't get many visitors and we've never had somebody like you here before," the 'Dennis' man spoke, back still turned to her as he reached into the refrigerator for something.

 _Somebody like her? Meaning what?_

"You're our first so, uh, it's still a little... new." She was the first? The first girl he had held here like this? Casey shivered anxiously while she brought her arms up, covering them over her chest, comforting herself a little. The way he spoke of it, it made her feel like while she was the first, she wouldn't be the last.

He was intending to do this to more girls. Of that she was sure judging by how he said it.

"This is something I prepared a little earlier, it's all mostly fresh," he went on, shutting the fridge. Casey glanced up in time to see him placing a plate of what looked like salad on the table next to her. It was still sealed in plastic for freshness, which he hastily unwrapped and discarded of, shoving the plate closer to her. Casey noticed his hands were trembling again, almost like he was nervous or felt under pressure in having her in the kitchen. "I'll, uh, I'll get you some water and cutlery."

He moved, pouring her a glass of water. Then he placed it down next to her elbow and set down a knife and fork for her. The knife and fork were made of plastic, she couldn't help noticing, nothing sharp that she could potentially use if she had the mind to.

"Eat," he grumbled, like an order, and then he pulled open the chair opposite her and sat down at the table himself.

Although starving, Casey found eating in front of the man nerve-wracking. He didn't get himself anything to eat, she noticed. He simply sat there, waiting for her to pick up her cutlery and start eating. Eating in front of the man that had done this to her and while he was probably going to watch... it didn't make her feel very comfortable.

Casey glanced his way quickly, her suspicions confirmed as his eyes met hers. He was sitting there stiffly in the chair, shoulders back, head straight. _Great. So he was going to watch her eat._

"Aren't you, um, eating anything as well?" she forced herself to ask as she made herself reach slowly for the plastic cutlery near the plate. Her voice sounded too hoarse, too unsteady. She sounded just as creeped out as she felt; but she couldn't help it.

The space between his brows formed a crease. "No, I, uh, already ate earlier."

It looked like she was going to have to endure him staring at her while she ate, so she grabbed her cutlery in both hands, leaning down towards the food in the plate. She noticed her own hands were trembling as she tried to slice a piece of tomato with the blunt knife.

It was excruciating, the amount of time that passed as she ate. Casey was sure she was being rude by stuffing food into her mouth so fast, only she couldn't bring herself to care. She was starving, damn it. She tried to mentally block out the man sitting opposite her by eyeing the kitchen while she chewed, but it was hard, hard not to feel his gaze on her, analyzing her as she ate the food he had given her.

After what seemed ages, he at last stood slowly from the chair, turning away from her. Casey felt her shoulders physically sag in relief as his obtrusive stare left her and she waited until his back and head were turned to her before she crammed the last bit of tomato into her mouth hastily.

She heard a faint noise, like a kitchen drawer opening as she chewed. _And then-_

Casey glanced up mid-chew as the 'Dennis' man turned to face her again, and what she saw there, held in his right hand... she tensed and nearly choked as she swallowed the last mouthful of food down. Scissors. He was holding a pair of scissors. He was staring at her, and Casey got the extremely unnerving feeling that he intended to use the scissors on her. _But to do what?_

"I-I've finished the food now," she made herself speak, her voice high-pitched with nerves, with fear of the unknown. "T-thank you."

Eyes on hers the whole time, the Dennis man stepped closer towards where she sat at the table, scissors still in his hand. The way he moved, with slow, exaggerated steps, it made her feel like she were the deer about to be pounced on by the predator. Her eyes fell towards the scissors again meaningfully as she prayed to herself, pleaded even to him in her own mind, not that he could have heard her, that what he intended to do with them wasn't too painful. _Was he going to kill her now? Stab her with the scissors? Had he given her the very last meal of her life, and now he was intending to put an end to her?_

She could hear him breathing heavily the closer he got towards where she sat, frozen, at the table. There was a determination there in his eyes, a hard glint to them.

Casey remembered how it would always happen, before, with her Uncle. In those moments, just beforehand, it was always best to remain silent and still, where you were. To remain silent, to let whatever happen... happen. Because fighting, running, showing anything, it was pointless. It would only cause pain. And maybe she wasn't so frightened of the idea of dying anyway?

Casey lifted her gaze, keeping her dark eyes on his, as he approached her chair. She forced herself to not look away, to keep her gaze on his, even when he came to stand so close that all he would have to do is lift his arm and then... stab. Stab her with the scissors.

Silent fear made her throat tighten, and she could feel her blood thrumming in her ears loudly as she tipped her chin a fraction higher in order to remain looking him head-on.

Standing above her while standing and she were seated, she saw his black-rimmed gaze move over her, taking all of her face in and the strands of her hair. His jaw was clenched, the corners of his lis pulled downward. There was something there in his eyes- something she couldn't properly understand flickered in them at how she was staring back at him. Perhaps her defiant stare unnerved him? Casey couldn't tell, but she was determined to look into the man's eyes, even if it were the very last thing she saw as she died.

But then, he spoke, the words low, barely audible, "I'm just gonna..." Then he did it.

Casey's eyes recoiled closed when he reached out towards her face, with no warning. She felt his fingers close over and grasp a strand of her hair, but not roughly, not brutally like he wanted to hurt her.

She swallowed against a dry lump at the back of her throat as she reopened her eyes and watched. Watched as the 'Dennis' man breathed deeply through parted lips, exhaling raggedly like he were nervous while his fingers touched her hair. Then she caught a glint of the metal sheen to the scissors, and he was guiding it towards her face, and then...

SNIP.

He cut a strand of her hair, a thick enough strand. Casey watched as the 'Dennis' man sighed again shakily, his gaze dropping to the chunky strands of her hair he had cut with the scissors. Her hair lay in his hand, and he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, as if enjoying the feel of it, the texture.

The sheer relief that overcame her, that she were not dead or stabbed... it rattled her to the core.

He'd just wanted to snip off a lock of her hair. He'd just wanted to cut a strand of her hair, not stab her.

Casey crumbled, even although she was trying her hardest to remain strong. Her eyes were on him, watching stunned, as he continued rubbing the lock of hair between his thumb and forefinger absently. Then her vision became blurred and she knew she had failed to keep her composure then. A gasp tore out of her mouth as she felt the tears of relief cling to her lashes, her shoulders trembling.

...

 _He was weak. So, so weak. And pathetic._

He'd sat there, watching her while she ate chewing slowly, her shoulders sort of hunched in on themselves in a timid, cautious way. At first, he'd just been watching her, millions of thoughts running by in his head, like, _why did she wear so many layers of clothing? There was the jacket she'd had on, and he was fairly certain she had a couple of long-sleeved shirts on beneath it. What's with all the clothes?_

Then he'd noticed how her hair shimmered in the kitchen light, and he'd been weak and couldn't resist himself. He wanted to touch her hair again, to stroke it like he had when she'd been unconscious, but... he couldn't just reach over while she were eating, could he?

That's when the idea struck him. There was a pair of scissors in the kitchen drawer. Patricia wouldn't have to know. He was in the Light right now, after all. All the others, they were asleep, blind.

He just wanted a little piece of her, just something to remember her by, something real, something he could smell and touch. Something he could stroke a little. Patricia wouldn't ever need to know, it was no big deal.

Just one little small bit of her, then... The Beast, once He emerged, he could have the rest of her.

 _It was no real big deal, in the big scheme of things, right?_

That way, he was still being good. Even if Patricia did somehow find out what he had done, in cutting a little of her hair to keep, even she couldn't deny he hadn't broken any serious rules, he were still keeping himself under control.

Even as he'd gotten the scissors out and turned to her, the way she'd met his eyes with her doe-like ones, the unspoken fear and trepidation in them... He'd told himself _stop it, no, no, don't do it, don't you do it_ , but he was too weak and he couldn't resist.

It felt worth it in the end to Dennis though, as he finally held the piece of her hair in his hand. It felt just as he had remembered, possibly even better. And the joy that burst through him, the sheer marvel he felt at touching the strands of her hair that he had cut off... He'd never properly had something of a young woman's to own before. He'd never really touched a woman's hair or experienced the joy of getting to stroke it, whenever he pleased. And her hair was so soft, so smooth as he rubbed into it with his thumb.

He'd gotten sidetracked in his own moment of weakness, touching it, wrapped up in it. But then-

He heard the shaky noise she'd made, and he glanced up to find her looking so vulnerable, yet so relieved. Her lower lip was trembling and there were tears clinging to her eyelashes. She was crying, and he'd made her cry in his moment of weakness. And if Patricia knew, she'd be so lethally mad at him.

The cut strands of her hair that he held and stroked burned and weighed heavily down on his conscience then. He felt suddenly sick and guilty as he noticed a tear slide down her cheek. Of course she'd be afraid of him, of course she'd feel disgusting that he'd violated her by cutting a piece of her hair off for himself. _Why wouldn't she?_

Dennis sighed loudly as he forced his eyes shut, the shame making his face glow hot. He felt a sudden desperate urge to explain himself, to make it clear on her.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that," he croaked out before he could even make sense of just what he was telling her. "I had a moment of weakness, but... I promise you it won't happen again. I'll be good from this point forward."

He brought his eyes open to peer down at her, to see if he was making any sense to her or not. He found himself regretting looking at her then, because the shame, it simply burned even bitter and brighter in his gut, making him feel sickened with himself.

She was staring at him still from where she sat, at the kitchen table, her used cutlery and empty plate in front of her. The nerve she had to stare right up at him, with her dark eyes, how there was no disgust in them, merely... what? Curiosity? Sympathy even? It didn't sit right with him, she was too attractive for her own good, even with the tears clinging to her long eyelashes, the track marks of wetness on her cheeks. If the girl had looked disgusted, it would have made it so much easier for him.

He shied away from her stare because, it was too much, all so too much. Too easy to be bad, so hard to be good. She made it so hard.

He licked his lips while readjusting his glasses. Then he brought his hand up, rubbing the back of his neck, torn. He felt so torn, so conflicted. He knew what was right- he couldn't touch her, shouldn't want to touch her or find her attractive. She was not for him, as Patricia often reminded before. She was for Him when He emerged, his sacred food.

She knew nothing of true suffering, she was so naive. She didn't know anything about the realities of life, all of its miseries, the girl knew nothing. She was for Him, that's all. A sacrifice for him. He'd met the Beast once before, as had Patricia, but they just needed time, until He fully emerged. That was her purpose.

She was food to satisfy the Beast once his time come, she wasn't something for him to ogle or touch, no matter how much he felt he wanted to.

Gritting his teeth, Dennis glanced down at the girl again while straightening his shoulders. He had to get this little thing under control now. And what better way, than enlightening her to the truth?

He moved and sat back down in the chair he had previously occupied, keeping the hand that clenched her hair in his lap while he stroked it with his fingers. She watched his movement with her eyes, that shame hitting him again. But once he made it clear to her, he was fairly confident she'd understand. Not to mention, it would reassert her purpose- _remind him_ of why she was there.

"I suppose there's no reason not to let you know at this point," he began, clearing his throat hoarsely. "But you are here for someone, and He's coming very soon." He saw the confusion and wariness shine in the girl's eyes. "You're going to be staying in that room that you were in, until He emerges. You will be his sacred food, his... offering, if you will."

She looked eager, yet somewhat frightened and wary by what he was telling her. He felt that urge again, that urge to stroke her hair... and luckily, he could. He was. He ran this thumb down the silky strands in his hand.

"His name is The Beast. And he's coming for you." Dennis was aware that his voice had risen, that it had gotten a little unsteady in all his eagerness to explain it for her. "When he finally comes for you, he'll feed on all your unbroken flesh, your sheltered mind." He was impassioned, loud with his confession. "You will be one of the very first ones presented with the true privilege of meeting Him."


End file.
